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Showing results for tags 'crinoinds'.
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Hello and Happy New Year to all of my Fossil Friends! Yesterday and today I put in my first 2 hunts of the year. The weather here has been mild and I almost went fishing instead. But the fossil gods were calling to me and I couldn't resist their siren song. I decided to visit a site that I haven't been to for awhile. I am sorry but a have made a New Years resolution to no longer name locations for the world to see. This is a site that I have gone a few times with minimal results. Mainly it is a rather large site and the rock is hard to work. But I knew the potential for nice finds were there. So, Yesterday I arrived in the afternoon, planning on putting in a few hours. I started off on a lower layer. Now there is multiple layers of shale mixed with slate and limestone. The way this material fractures is rather strange. Which makes recovery of specimens rather tough. So while I found many cool things most where damaged in some way. Crinoids, brachiopods, bivalves, gastropods, nautiloids and trilo Cephalons were fairly common. Some were even pyritized. I must have been there for a couple hours before I decided to explore farther up the slope. I noticed a different color rock closer to the top, but there was really no where to stand. I grabbed a couple loose pieces and started seeing parts of corals and crinoids that were larger then any I have found before. Also partial trilo bits and pieces of Eldregoeps. I looked for a way to get to the very top of the slope and found a way that was not at first obvious. And then bingo! I found a small section that was easier to work and I immediately was rewarded. I started finding abundant amounts of horn coral, large crinoid segments and a nice slab with a horn coral with a trilo right next to it and possibly more. Then I removed a chunk of rock and uncovered a huge tabulate coral about the size of a dinner plate. Unfortunately this specimen was fragile and was broke into a million pieces. But I recovered some of the larger pieces. It started getting dark so I left for home with plants to go back this morning, which I did. Today was much of the same tons of corals but one horn coral was about the size of a grapefruit. This is definitely a different species than I am used to seeing. Most if not all need to be cleaned up and possibly prepped. So I plan on trying to clean up and get the mud off. I will post pics later this evening. It looks like this year has started off with a bang. I hope it is a sign of things to come.