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Made a fairly brief visit to a site in Ocean County, near New Egypt, NJ. on Monday 4/6/15. There was a shell bed exposed in a very muddy narrow ravine composed of the Paleocene brachiopod; Oleneothyris harlani. Collected a number of small specimens. They are extremely fragile and usually crumble when exposed. Will return some time to collect, hopefully better specimens.

Hey guys, I've been puzzling over some brachiopods that I've found at a site in PA that exposes the Mifflintown formation. This is a Silurian aged rock formation that is dated to about 428-420 mya (Sheinwoodian to Gorstian stages). It corresponds to the McKenzie formation in Maryland and West Virginia and a part of the Clinton Group in New York. The brachiopods are all Rhynchonellid types and look very similar. I've been able to split them into three somewhat distinct types based on the sulcus depth and size. Below is a picture of specimens of each type with the labels that I think go with them. I based my IDs on a variety of resources, many of which are very old and have older generic nomenclature. Among my sources were: "Index Fossils of North America" by Schimer and Schrock (1949) The "Silurian" volume from the Maryland Geological Survey (1923) "Silurian System of West Virginia" from the West Virginia Geological Survey (1941) "Fossil Collecting in Pennsylvania" from the Pennsylvania Geological Survey (1983) "Fossil Collecting in the Mid-Atlantic States" by Jasper Burns (1991) I'd appreciate any feedback or alternate ID suggestions.

I revisited a creek Tennessee that I had mildly glossed over in the past. With more purpose this time I searched and found some of the most beautiful and large fossils I have encountered yet. As a crinoid enthusiast I was overjoyed, and even more exciting was all of the OTHER marine fossils I found, expanding my appreciation of all kinds of fossilized beauty. here are a few of my favorite examples and I may post more as I continue to photograph my finds.

I was planning to attend the Museum of the Earth's outing to Jamesville Quarry and knew that gas would be the primary expense for the three and a half hour trip each way. So, I decided to make the most of it and head up there two days early, camp, and visit some very productive Middle Devonian sites my girlfriend, Valerie and I explored last May. 11:30 Thursday morning I arrived at Deep Springs Road quarry near Lebanon in Madison County. It is an excellent exposure of the Windom Shale and was my favorite site on my last visit to the area. A wide variety of well preserved fossil invertebrates are profuse in the relatively soft shale where they can usually be extracted without too much difficulty. Many preserved in calcite, can be removed entirely from the rock. Within the first fifteen minutes I uncovered a small Greenops trilobite cephalon. Several minutes later, I found a complete Phacops rana enrolled. The very top of its cephalon shattered when I removed it from the rock, but otherwise it was perfect. Here's a picture: Almost as exciting was the wide assortment of excellent bivalve fossils I found. This is a Grammysia: Brachiopods were also abundant. This is Athyris spiriferoids: Also found other partial trilobites, crinoid stems, gastropods, and a tiny goniatite. I was going to spend a few hours there and then head over to a nearby exposure of the upper Ludlowville Formation, but I ended up spended the whole day at Deep Springs Road. Friday morning I drove twenty minutes to Pompey Center and a famous roadcut along Route 20 where the Skaneateles Formation is well exposed. Within minutes I found a nice large Cornulites, a bivalve: There were other bivalves as well. This is Modiomorpha: One of my goals was to find a large Spyroceras, a straight-shelled nautiloid. Last May we collected a number of fragments. Friday I was hoping for a more complete one. Wasn't to happen. This is one of the fragments I collected: Also found a number of fragments of Michelinoceras, another straight-shelled nautiloid. The surprise of the morning was a two and a quarter inch goniatite found lying free on top of the roadcut: It was nearly an hour drive east to the tiny hamlet of North Brookfield through stunning farm country. Nearby is a sandstone quarry exposing the Skaneateles Formation which is famous for its abundance of Dipleura dekayi, a huge burrowing trilobite. Valerie and I only spent a short while there last May. Still I was able to find three Dipleura cephalons, a pygidium, also an enormous bivalve, brachiopods, and cephalopods. The first rock I split open on Friday revealed a small, but complete Dipleura cephalon, better than any of the ones I found on my last trip. A few minutes later, I split another sandstone slab and I immediately focused on a bivalve in the center, but then my eyes drifted down to something unusual in the corner. There was the thorax and pygidium of a young Dipleura. When I turned the slab on its side I saw the cephalon still attached to the body, pointing downwards. Even though it was young, it is at least three times the size of the adult Phacops I found the previous day: Later I found a number of pygidiums and some bivalves, including one very large Leioptera. Saturday morning, the Museum of the Earth group was planning to congregate at 11:00 so that gave almost an hour an half to return to Pompey Center. I decided to focus on the lower portion of the roadcut which is shale where last May Valerie found a perfect Paleozygopleura, a lovely corkscrew-shaped gastropod. I was hoping to find one myself. After a while of digging in the crumbly shale, I found a small complete Greenops trilobite. Unfortunately the fragile body was stuck in the imprint and much of it crumbled when i removed it. However the imprint is perfect: Later, I found my own Paleozygopleura, though not as good as the one Valerie found: I joined the Museum of the Earth group at Jamesville Quarry. That excursion is very well documented by Marley's Ghost so I need not repeat anything. I did find a number of teeth of Onychodus sigmoides a rhipidistian fish as well as other small unidentified fish parts. In the Nedrow member of the Onondaga Limestone I found excellent examples of Favosites, a tabulate coral. I brought a number of pieces back. They really show the structure well: Well, that's about it. It's been hectic the past few days organizing, sorting, and cleaning my specimens as well as getting back on track with all the personal and professonal matters I neglected while I was away three days. All in all it feels good to be back home.