Search the Community

Find these tube structures along with deposits of light gray pure clay balls about the size of golf balls and slag like material. measurement in inches

This is the second part of my post describing my recent fossil hunting trip with @Tales From the Shale in Utica, of which it was awesome!!! So after visiting the abandoned clay pit, we decided to go to another location in Utica one might not expect to be productive - the former peabody coal company Pit 15 (or at least its outskirts), located not to far away from Lake Shannon, Kankakee County, Illinois (I'm am not going to tell the specific route or address so the area doesn't end up being picked clean). We went there as I had heard a report that a while ago, someone found a sizable Cladodus (or cladodont labeled as Cladodus) tooth at Pit 15 itself. At the top of the outskirts of the Pit was truly Beautiful!!! I expected to find simply nodules in the area. What I found instead were a staggering amount of different rocks with a descent portion containing fossils, most of brachipods though. As the area was once a mine, I've somewhat come up with a theory as to why this is - when the mines were closed, the pit was filled not just with nodule containing rocks but by all the types of rocks available in the Utica area ranging from shale to clay to limestone, likely either Ordovician or Carboniferous in age. It's still a pretty productive site and I've recently analyzed many of the specimens with a microscope and dissecting scope and I hope to get some IDs from them! Here's a possible shark spine I found there!

On Saturday, I went on a fossil hunting trip with @Tales From the Shale in the area of Utica, LaSalle County, Illinois. After some time driving and looking for roadcuts, we discovered an abandoned clay bed/outcrop not too far away from the town itself. There, we discovered an absolutely massive amount of shark spines and teeth! I would like to know if anyone could properly ID some of the specimens we found!! \ This is one of the best shark spines I found at the site!!! It does look somewhat like the spine of Listracanthus, but I'm not 100% sure!! Possible Crusher plate tooth or maybe the bottom part of a large cladodont? Likely fish teeth or denticles, but I'm don't yet know what species/genus this could belong to? I really don't know what this could be? Maybe some sort of mineral or a fish head? Truly beautiful chondricthyian tooth in a clay matrix!!! However, I still don't know what specific group it could belong to? Maybe it could be a large crusher plate?

On Saturday I went fossil hunting with @Tales From the Shale in Utica, LaSalle County, Illinois! We drove for some time looking for roadcuts when we discovered an abandoned clay pit not too far away from the town itself. I learned later its rocks date to the Pennsylvanian period of the Carboniferous era. There were also a bunch of nodules there too, but mostly it was stark shale and Excello shale. We opened the shale rocks up and we found a massive amount of small fossil imprints. But we also found some likely Chondrichthyan spines which I was wondering if anyone could ID the genera? This first specimen I found after breaking open a large piece of Stark Shale. I asked @Tales From the Shale for an ID and he said it very likely a Listracanthus spine. Here is the specimen under a dissecting scope!!! The striations typically seen on chondrichthyans like Listracanthus or Cladodus are more visible here, but I'm a bit unsure if these could be matched to either of these genera?

Ok I went out to the Wilson Claypit for a couple hours Sunday after church. Did not find much but a nice day. I found the two items below which have me stumped. I thought maybe interior structure of something maybe like Brachiopod or I don't know? Thought maybe interior structure from Crinoid or Urchin? Found the one with the two sides together then a 100 yards away found the other single. When I first noticed the one I thought it was interior of an old walnut but it is a fossil.