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It was only 9 days since my previous (and first) trip to HH, but I was itching to go back and decided to take advantage of the mild weather this Monday. I spent most of the day on the north side of the south pit picking tiny fossils out of the mud. There are an astonishing variety of critters to find if you don't mind lying face down in the dirt. 1. Tiny trilobites! I was not expecting to find any trilobites until I spotted the guy on the left. Luckily I had a small ziplock bag or I would have lost these for sure. They are about 2.5 and 3.0 mm across the head. 2. Nautiloids Fragments like these are most common after brachiopod and crinoid bits 3. Ammonites/goniatites Also very common but one of my favorites, I will never find enough of these. 4. Brachiopods and bivalves Fragments everywhere but a bit harder to find complete 5. Another brach Nothing special, just nicely inflated and good detail on both sides 6. Another brach A little more interesting. I only found one like this. 7. Gastropod I found many fragments that suggest this shape but this one is by far the most compete. 8. Crinoid stem fragments Very abundant but these ones caught my eye 9. Part of a crinoid calyx? (opposite sides of the same piece shown) 10. Cystoid plates Could be wrong, I just learned about cystoids so I'm bound to imagine seeing them everywhere

A few of the pieces of fossil matrix I received from Bob O'Donnell required some cleanup. I tried scrubbing with a toothbrush and soap and water to no avail. The only safe cleaning agent I had on hand was CLR (Calcium, Lime, Rust). I know a lot of the matrix and fossils may consist of Calcium Carbonate and was ready for the reaction. I left the matrix in the CLR solution for about one minute then scrubbed them with soap and water. Prior to the CLR bath the matrix was quite dirty, dark and dull. After the etching the matrix was quite clean, dark and dull until I put it under the microscope. The microscope revealed some sculpted areas and surprising colours. The colours and shapes revealed in one matrix piece are the subject of this post. The matrix piece is 55mm x 40mm x 30mm. I photographed only one corner and that required four sections of 10 photos each stacked with Picolay. The four stacked sections were then stitched with Microsoft's ICE. I know I should not have used CLR, but what is life without surprises. Microscope: Zeiss Stemi 305, 2x photo eyepiece, .8x objective. Camera: Canon 1000D, Composite of the four stacked sections. Top Left Top right Bottom right Bottom left