By John Seewer
The Associated Press

SYLVANIA - A blur of pigtails, arms and legs dives into the pile of dirt and rocks, searching for hidden treasures.

It takes only seconds before the first high-pitched voice screams, "I found one!"

"Hey, here's another one," cries out a young girl. "I'm finding lots of them."

IF YOU GO

Fossil Park in the Toledo suburb of Sylvania is open weekends through Oct. 19: Hours: Saturdays 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sundays 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission: Free. Contact: Olander Park System, (419) 882-8313

Within minutes, plastic freezer bags are stuffed with chunks of gray rock containing trilobites, brachiopods and horn corals - Devonian-era fossils from creatures that inhabited the Earth 350 million years ago.

Fossil Park, which has been built in an abandoned 5-acre quarry about 10 miles from downtown Toledo, is open for its second full season this summer.

And visitors can keep what they find.

"These are things you can feel and hold in your hand," said Gary Madrzykowski, director of the Olander Park System, which operates the public park. "They get to take home real souvenirs."'

Madrzykowski said the park is one of three in the United States he knows of that are open to the public for fossil hunting. The others are in Rockford, Iowa, and Hamburg, N.Y.

The park is open to the public beginning in May through Oct. 19, only on Saturdays 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sundays 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission is free.

There are two digging pits at the bottom of the quarry where visitors sift through piles of dirt and rock. Finding a fossil takes very little work and getting a little dirty is unavoidable.

Many pieces of shale contain at least a partial fossil, though many have complete impressions and are easy to recognize. Some can be found by breaking the rock by hand.

"It's easy to find fossils," said Debbie Owens of Sylvania, who visited recently.

"Almost everything you look at has some piece in it."

Water is available in a large tank to help wash away the dirt.

But experienced fossil hunters and those in the know bring toothbrushes or paintbrushes to sweep away dirt covering the trilobites and brachiopods.

The rock in northwest Ohio is rich with fossils - at least 200 types.

Most of the fossils found at the park are fairly common, their value more educational than monetary.

"It's considered to be world-class collecting," said Ron Rea, a geologist with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources' Geologic Survey. "A lot of the specimens that come out of there are in real good shape."

Employees at a nearby privately owned quarry approached the park district about creating the fossil park.

They had been overwhelmed with requests from groups wanting to look for fossils found in the shale at their quarries.

Nearly all of the requests had to be turned down because of safety reasons, said Jeff Stoll an environmental engineer Hanson Aggregate Midwest Inc., which operates the stone quarry.

So, the company donated the land for the park and trucks the rocks and fossils to the park from its quarries. Stoll said the quarry has a several-thousand-ton stockpile of shale full of fossils that should last for generations.

"Our goal was to make it available to everybody," Stoll said.

Madrzykowski knew the park was going to be a hit on the first day it opened in the fall of 2001 when he saw an older couple make their way into the quarry.

"She dropped her cane and he dropped his cane and they plopped themselves down on the pile and started to dig," he said. "They were like kids again."

The park system has a 10-year plan to develop the site, which now has few amenities. It wants to add more digging pits, a walkway around the rim of the quarry, picnic shelters and permanent restrooms - there are just portable toilets now.

Within three years, the park may be open seven days a week, but there are no plans to charge admission, Madrzykowski said.

Until then, they have decided not to spend much on advertising.

Still, fossil hunters have found the park by word of mouth and the Internet. It's not unusual for out-of-town visitor to show up at the park on a weekday and find it closed, Madrzykowski said.

"In a way, it's been impossible to keep the genie inside the bottle," he said.

A year ago, there were about 10,000 visitors - some from as far as Russia and South Africa. This year, school groups have completely booked the 50 openings for tours in the spring and fall.

On a recent spring morning, about 40 second-graders from Toledo pretended to be paleontologists, digging and chipping for prehistoric finds.

After less than an hour of exploration, they lugged their plastic bags full of fossils onto the school bus. Some didn't want to leave.

"You can come back," said Erika Buri, one of the park's guides. "We never run out of fossils."