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Showing results for tags 'Deer Lake'.
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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.
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Honey there's scree in my shoe - Centralia PA, Deer Lake PA, 10/10/2020
Vae70 posted a topic in Fossil Hunting Trips
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 -
Orthonata, bivalve "razor clam" from Deer Lake, PA
Jeffrey P posted a gallery image in Member Collections
From the album: Middle Devonian
Orthonata undulate (bivalves "razor clams") Middle Devonian Mahantango Formation Deer Lake, Pennsylvania -
From the album: Middle Devonian
Bryozoan or possible sponge Middle Devonian Mahantango Foramtion Deer Lake, Pennsylvania- 1 comment
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- bryozoan
- Middle Devonian
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