Had an interesting weekend field trip to Ringgold, Georgia, where Ordovician and Silurian rocks are well exposed in a huge cut on the interstate highway. The leaves had "peaked" about a week earlier, but were still glorious on Taylor Ridge (yes, the same Taylor Ridge of Civil War fame in the Atlanta campaign, about 30 miles southeast of Chattanooga). Our little group broke up for a while to study different parts of the outcrop. Larry Herr and I collected and photographed trace fossils, and Tony Martin measured trace fossils in another area. Larry and I examined some rocks that had fallen down recently and decided to take Tony there to see them after lunch. Over lunch, I told the others about my experiences as a graduate student studying this highway cut. I spent about 5 weeks here, and every time I return, the memories come flooding back. I would spend a day with my nose to the rock, which was all in shades of gray. I carefully recorded slightly bluish grays, greenish grays, reddish grays, and pure grays. Then returned to the camp, where every color was as vivid as could be. The sun was so yellow, the sky was so blue, the trees were so green. I also told them about the frustrations of seeing unique or beautiful objects destroyed by hammers. The highway cut is frequently visited by college classes and fossil collectors. For some reason related perhaps to search images or to the way people see and recognize objects, a person wanting to see a fresh surface of rock is more likely to hit something interesting and distinctive with a hammer than a typical, bland section of the cliff. You have to be trained to examine representative samples instead of focusing on the "wow" stuff. This makes for some really frustrating times on commonly visited outcrops, I said. You can find a neat fossil or sedimentary structure in the cliff, one that no one could remove without special equipment, and be sure that someone will take a whack at it. (Cameras really are the best way to "collect" some objects!) An hour and a half later, back on the outcrop, we met a pair of fossil collectors from Chattanooga. They were looking for trilobites in a layer that is rich in brachiopods, but has never once yielded a trilobite to my knowledge. Oh, well, they seemed to be happy enough with the brachiopods. When a stone half the size of my fist came down and hit my knee, I decided that the conversation was over. I also decided to visit the terrace above them next, instead of the terrace below, as I'd originally planned. A few steps onward, and what did we see? Well, we didn't see what we expected to show Tony, that's for sure. The boulder that had an interesting and rarely seen, but unfossiliferous phosphatic layer exposed had been smashed into smithereens in a useless search for trilobites. The several ordinary boulders next to it were untouched. Larry and I were dumbfounded; an hour and a half earlier, the boulder had been intact. I wasn't struck speechless for long. It certainly was striking to have the lunchtime lesson driven home. Experienced and well-trained amateurs and scientists can agree on this, I think: Inexperienced and untrained amateurs and scientists can cause a lot of damage while they are learning. I don't mind that so long as they do learn. I remember how patient (or resigned) my own teachers were on occasion. Rocks, shells, it doesn't matter which; the principle is the same. A positive way to train collectors is for clubs to host speakers on the subject of collecting methods, including good collecting habits. The Geological Survey of Alabama has run three workshops on fossil collecting for high-school teachers, including conservation of fossils, and other groups have run similar workshops in other states. The Red Mountain Museum used to have a close connection with the Birmingham Paleontological Society, taking them to outcrops, training them gently in conservation, and reaping the benefits of volunteer work. The Utah Geological Survey and Denver Museum of Natural History (Colorado) offer innovative programs to certify volunteer collectors, who then train others. I am optimistic about these programs, which are paleontological. Does anything analogous exist for collectors of living mollusks? Andrew K. Rindsberg Geological Survey of Alabama Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA All places mentioned above are in the United States. Ringgold is in the southern Appalachian Mountains.