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Picked up an interesting little brachiopod making a pit stop driving through Deer Lake on the way to see family. Curious to know what it is, I have a couple of brachiopods from the mahagango around PA but none with as pronounced of a frontal notch as this one presents.

Inspired by a post last week by @I_gotta_rock, I decided to take a bit of an impromptu trek out to Centralia to add some of the famous white fern plates of the Lewellyn formation to my collection. I say impromptu because I was told I needed some pretty good rock climbing gear to be safe at the site, I ordered some pretty nice rock climbing gear too, still decided to go take a peek before everything arrived leading to one heck of an adventure that still has me smiling from ear to ear. We got our stuff ready to head out bright and early when I immediately hit my first snag, last week's adventure to the C&D canal left me with an absolutely lovely set of scars above my ankles from the thickets of exactly-the-height-of-my-ankles thorn burrs that had overgrown the spoil piles. Given that the scars were still healing, I decided to forego my normal high cuff desert boots that would surely rub against them all day for my trusty pair of low cut boat shoes. I'm pretty good on my feet right it'll be just fine yep. Off we went, excited to check out the mystery 'burning town' and the fossils said to be found there, a decent bit into our drive down 61 I noticed a billboard for 'Deer Lake Pub & Restaurant'. I thought to myself "wait didn't some guy find trilobites behind some bar in Deer Lake?" oh he sure did, queue "Hey hun, wanna have dinner at that nice little pub on the way back? maybe check out the rocks around the random excavator they have in the parking lot?". I got the go-ahead and gave a silent fist pump, two birds with one stone! We had barely any trouble finding the site out in Centralia, thanks to excellent directions from @I_gotta_rock and an encounter with a man and woman on the path out as we were headed in. He held a gigantic slab of black shale as triumphantly as any athlete with a trophy and she followed behind hefting a yellow 5-gallon bucket. Few words were exchanged but I do hope they browse this forum. Not too shortly after we arrived at the slope of scree and made our way to the top to survey the site. The view was breathtaking, overlying the subtle thought of "hold up it didn't look this steep in her photos" - though an adventure we came for an adventure we were going to have. We spent the afternoon slipping and sliding across the scree, maintaining a low center of gravity (butt-scooting) as we clambered up and down the slope. To say the site was plentiful would be an understatement, we were literally walking over layers of fossils. I decided to focus primarily on collecting small/medium sized specimens as the shale was quite fragile and dragging a 15lb chunk of rock up that slope would've brought me too close to my own mortality for comfort. We wrapped up our time in Centralia after collecting our fill and emptying my shoes of scree for the 10th time, leaving enough time for a short drive down 61 to Deer Lake. As the sun was setting we pulled into the parking lot at Deer Lake Pub & Restaurant, parking a stone's throw away from a freshly made cut into the Mahantango beneath a nicely perched excavator. We took a short look around the site, primarily shale/scree with plenty of good looking rocks to hit with a pick. Hoping for a trilobite we lost the race against the sun going down but did make out with a small bounty of brachiopods and a crinoid stem. All told, I couldn't be happier with the day's haul having just finished basic prep work at 10PM. I'd say the finds of the day were a mystery specimen from Centralia that i'm hoping is some sort of seed, a clean/closed clam like brachipod from Deer Lake and numerous well defined small to medium sized fern plates. Site view - Centralia Site view - Deer Lake

A friend of mine wanted to try collecting fossils, so i took him to deer lake yesterday. i havent been there since the road expansion. but, even though he found some fossils and was happy, i was pretty disappointed since the area changed so much and collecting is alot harder. the larger chuncks better collecting areas are no longer there, alot of stuff has been moved and covered. and alot that is there now has been so exposed that as soon as you touch it, it just crumbles into millions of pieces. collecting there is alot harder, but stuff is still there. Found alot of pyrited material this time, and the coolest piece i found was a very nice spiral shell. lots of conglomerate pieces with multiple fossils. my friend found a huge clam fossil with both sides still attached it was pretty nice. ill post some pics, if you know any names for me to id them fire away, and thanks.

Im really a rock and mineral collector, but gone on fossil trips when i get a chance, and pick up some here n there i find. Im finally getting around to picturing my rocks and cataloging them, and fossils im less an expert. So i would like more information to properly name and catalog them. So any help would be greatful. All of these i have found myslelf. TRILOBITES The first 2 pictures im sure is a trilobite, i found it at Deer Lake, Pa. im thinking a Hollardops or Greenops type? Third picture a trilobite, but probally not enough to identify what type? 4th picture maybe a trilobite head of some kind? PLANTS First picture, i found this in Wilkes Barre, Pa. which is a very high coal producing area. I believe this is a Lepidodendron Tree Casting? 2nd picture some type of tree bark? (Deer Lake, Pa.). 3rd plant picture, maybe lepidodendron leaves? 4th picture, a fern, but what kind of fern is this? these fern leaves look really full and big, and alot i have seen are skinnier and not as full? Any help naming all would be appriciated, give it a shot for me, I will call this round one. Thanks Paul.

1. First one is a Spirifer i think, but dont know which kind, sorry forgot something for scale size, its a little under 3/4 inch. 2. Some type of shell 3. Some type of shell 4. Another type of shell 5. ( pictures 5-6-7) A conglomerate with alot of different types of material, ive tried taking like 20 pictures but couldnt get better detail. 2 things i think that weird the most i have marked in last picture, but if i could get better detail you would see. but i cant so had to draw as best i could. top marked area looks almost like scaled lzard skin, and its folded also going 90 degrees not all flat. the bottom circle marked is really detailled and has a bunch of lines almost fingerprint like. 6. (pictures 8-9-10-11) A cavity in the rock with spongy like material, both big pieces were conected together but broke in half, pictures 10-11 show a little piece that was connected and broke off, but shows some detail. 7. I believe crinoid, but never seen this type pictured? 8. Is this crinoid?

This is my round 2, of things i found, and helping me properly name and catalog them. First picture, i think is some kind of coral? 2nd picture - Coral also maybe? kinda looks like little suction cup suckers? 3rd picture - Some kinda spiral shell? 4th picture - Another type of shell 5th picture - probally some type of clam shell, i was excited at first and thought it was a crab top shell. 6th picture - I find alot of these types, a shell of some kind? 7-8-9 - This one is weird, looks like some kind of shell, but then looks almost like it has teeth or little legs. Really want to know what this is? (Deer Lake, Pa.) 10th picture - I found this in a secret spot in St Clair, Pa., looks to me like a segment of a fossilized tree, its round, totally flat on top n bottom, and looks like striations lines in bark? if im right anyway knowing type of tree? Thanks in advance to anyone who helps out, i'll just list round one and two for now, till i get some answers, and if i get anywhere with answers i will post some more, thanks all. Paul.

Devonian Trace Patterns from Deer Lake PA (Hamilton Gp/Mahantango) This is just for fun but maybe someone will recognize some of these trace patterns. I saw these distinctive trace patterns at the Deer Lake site and took these photos. I didn't collect the fossils but photographed them because they look like some kind of crinoid or coral filaments. The first image seems to have the top of a tube with the filaments above it. Pattern 1 Pattern 2 Pattern 3 Pattern 4

A Quick Trip to Deer Lake Nan and I spent half a day at Deer Lake which is still beautifully exposed by the highway construction with lots of rock facings, rubble piles and exposed walls, also large rocks and boulders. There is a lot of iron content in the shale below the "Tully limestone" strata which is near the top and just below the limestone there are Dipleura trilobites although we have found mostly body parts and segments. I also noticed that a lot of the assemblages include shells and other creatures were already dead when they were fossilized. Many of the shells in large assemblages are different types of brachiopods/pelecypods with holes in the shells suggesting they died and accumulated like shells do today at ocean shorelines, then were fossilized. Some clusters where all or most of the species are the same with no deterioration or predation suggest that they died together at the same time. Students and fossil hounds have been scouring this area but there is a lot more to find and more being revealed as the construction continues. Nan and I have had pretty good luck this year with construction sites - most notably of course the Wattieza tree stumps we discovered. We do have some questions about some of our Deer Lake finds - comments welcome: 1. Trilobites We only found 2 trilobites this trip - this one is curled under at the bottom which is shown in these views: 2. Crinoids These are some interesting crinoids: 3. Pleurodictyum Coral Patterns - (Not Clam Mold Patterns) I thought these strange patterns were in the mold of a clam - there are tons of clam fossils at Deer Lake, some fairly large. These patterns were in a mold but apparently this is from a coral. 4. Spaghetti Shaped Fossils And finally - here are some "spaghetti strands" Nan was wondering about - not sure what these are: We found a LOT more fossils, including some assemblages that will make some nice displays. We were looking for larger pieces for display and found one large shell covered rock that is almost 2 feet long.

Here are three large bivalve internals from our recent Deer Lake trip - I think some of the details are especially interesting - not sure what the ID would be for this but there are quite a few of these at the site, which is Mahantango: BIVALVE 1 - assume the closeup is a preserved pedicle: BIVALVE 2 - note the detail of the scalloped section along the edge in the second photo BIVALVE 3 This is the underside of a third bivalve internal - note the interesting structures/patterns:

I would appreciate help identifying this small Devonian trilobite (about an inch or so long) that apparently crawled out and perched on a small ledge at Deer Lake. Nan and I finally found time for a fossil hunting day - first this season - we spent a few hours at Deer Lake where they are widening the highway - tons of rubble everywhere due to the construction, although this makes for needle in a haystack fossiling. We did tend to find consistent death assemblages in the same geological layer throughout the site, which suggests an extinction event - I wonder how narrowly the extinction event can be pinpointed, given that all we know is the approximate depth of the assemblages, and the similarity in substrate color/material. We found assemblages in the same narrow band in our previous trips to the site. Here is the trilo image - I should mention that we didn't extract it totally intact because of the crack in the fossil, and the substrate was very crumbly: I found the first trilobite, which is about an inch long. Nan found the large adult Dipleura on the right - the specimen shown is several inches high.

I would appreciate confirmation that this cephalopod is Striacoceras. It is well articulated and comes apart in segments which allowed me to take some photos of the individual "puzzle pieces." This comes from the Devonian slopes at Deer Lake, Pennsylvania(Hamilton Group, Mahantango Formation). Back Story: On Labor Day weekend, Nancy and I stopped for 2 hours at a Deer Lake borrow pit on our way to St. Clair. While I scrambled on the steep slope checking rubble and excavating substrate, Nan decided to chisel open some large pieces at the bottom of the slope. She segmented a large piece of shale twice and the shale was totally blank - normally that would be enough, but Nan decided to give it one more whack and was delighted to discover this large, well-articulated/segmented cephalopod. I should mention that most of her best finds have come from chiseling open pieces that were left in plain site and overlooked by other collectors. I'll post some of the brachiopods found at Deer Lake in the Trips forum - also some very exciting Lepidendron finds at St. Clair.

Nancy and I made a two hour stop at the Devonian borrow pit/rubble slopes at Deer Lake, PA on Sept. 1, on our way to St. Clair (along Route 61). These are very steep rubble-covered slopes, a bit tricky to climb and navigate. There are several locations. The mining slopes are posted so we avoided them. There are slopes behind two restaurants, and slopes next to a parking lot although some of the back slopes are posted. I spent most of my time at the top of the slope and Nan cracked shale rocks at the bottom. Nan found a 8 cm long cephalopod which is discussed and pictured in the Fossil ID section (http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php/topic/31741-devonian-cephalopod-from-deer-lake-pa/page__hl__%2Bdeer+%2Blake ) The Deer Lake site is described by several sources as having an extremely large and diverse variety of Devonian fossils, from ammonoids and brachiopods to cephalopods and trilobites. We found no ammonoids or trilobites - however, I found some very impressive "death assemblages" that confirmed the variety of fossils here, including a nice internal spirifid brachiopod that later separated from the substrate. The shell in Image 10.1 seems to show the pattern (and possibly color) of the original shell (look at the brown and beige stripes that cut across the contoured grooves). Also, Image 11.1 looks like a portion of an Orthonata shell although it could be something else. Some of the assemblages are artistically arranged and are very cool. The iron content creates some bright orange fossils and the shale tends to come in purple and orange colors, including some olive green shale. This orange and purple coloring is very impressive. Our goal is to find a much larger "death assemblage" in order to collect a specimen that would be suitable for display. On the way to this site, we stopped at a local roadcut near our home that we had been eyeing and found a lot of olive green colored shale. In a very quick 10 minute look, we found some trace fossils but nothing significant although if we find anything that is well defined it will be impressive because of the unique color of the shale. We plan to spend more time at the Deer Lake slopes, on a future visit. Nancy wants to crack open some of the larger rocks and I want to extract some larger slices of shale, to get a nice display piece. We have not had time to go through the fossils to identify them - we have a large collection of Devonian shell fossils from several different sites and I plan to spend the winter identifying these. If anyone would like to offer identifications for any of these now and save me some time poring over the fossil books this winter, you're welcome to do so - I've numbered the images for easy ID.

Collected this yesterday (Oct 6) at Deer Lake - Mahantango/Hamilton Grp. Are these impressions crinoid tentacles, or some other soft bodied creature? The arrows show the stem and tentacles of what looks like a tiny piece of the top of the stem with some tentacles attached, flowing to the right. Farther toward the top right, it looks like tentacles from another crinoid extending from the right toward the center. Here is the same photo with a ruler to show the size.

Online sources say if this has a pedicle it is a brachiopod - so I'm trying to figure out if the pedicle is showing at the far right, in which case this would be a large (5 cm) brachiopod? Collected yesterday (Oct. 6) at Deer Lake/Mahantango.