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I had an amazing day up at my local spot collecting. There had been no new blasts or work at the quarry so I decided to scour the pit wall near the north end of a pond area near the road way down into the BobCaygeon formation material. Those who collect there will know the general area. . To my surprise I found very quickly a fortediscus edrioasteroid about 1 1/2 inches across. Will likely post something on it once it is prepped . I quickly noted that there was a crinoid layer about 3 inches above the layer the edrio was on and that there was a layer about 3 inches below the edrio that I could make out tail sections from pleurocystites. Well five hours later we had taken out probably a ton of rock between two of us.We had to remove about 4 feet of overburden to get to the first layer. If only we had brought a 6 foot pry bar we would have been golden. Regardless we excavated about 10 feet of wall going back about 2 1/2 feet. My reward an edrioasteroid, a cyclosystoid, a plate with two unknown at this point large crinoid calyxes, 13 cycstites (a combination of pleurocystites and amycystites). My friends reward an edrioasteroid and some crinoids.... We will be back next weekend with some heavier bars and my friend the excavating machine Kane...... Here is some pictures of the first one I prepped this morning.... We are blessed with some great collecting up here in Ontario Canada...... A number of you have been up to hunt with me over the years..... Hopefully more will make it in the future......

Here is a highly inflated 3-dimensional Homocystites sp that was found this past Saturday May 14 on a very cold rainy day. The only bright note to the weather was that the wet matrix made it a bit easier to see the fossils. This is from the Ordovician Verulam formation and was found in a new blast pile from the previous 7 days. The homocystites typically found is Homocystits anatiformis which is found in the Cobourg formation. This species is typically a little smaller and is under review as potentially being a different species. Homocystites has an ovate theca and a fairly long stem (most missing in this specimen). It has a distinct pattern of radiating ridges on the plates that are very geometric in shape. It was prepped in about 5 minutes using low PSI (10) and dolomite in the 200 to 325 mesh range. No airscribing was needed. There is no restoration or repairs. The specimen is 36 mm long with a 27 mm theca (body) It is 11 mm wide and about 5 mm extends out of the matrix . I am considering finishing off the prep by completely exposing the specimen 360 degrees around, essentially making it a free standing on its stem specimen. I have seen a few prepped this way over the years and they are focal points in people display collections. What do you folks think should I take the chance and go for it.

I actually had an amazing day hunting in the Verulam formation near Lake Simcoe, Ontario, Canada on Sunday April 12th with my friend J. Even with his rock saw it took me three trips from the bottom of the pit to lug the rocks out. I figure about 200 pounds of rocks came home with me.The weather was perfect (18 degrees celcius but there is still ice and snow in areas ) I got to the site about 8:00AM and stayed till 5 PM. Two hour drive each way so I was beat by the time I got home. Also was a little worse for wear as I got a finger trapped between two heavy slabs. Throbbed for the whole day. Currently at this location the only way to find anything decent is to split rock. Not a lot of new material has been uncovered since last season. But if you spend the time splitting you will find some pretty decent material. By splitting I literally mean splitting several hundred pound boulders (a shaley limestone). I found 3 ceraurus, 2 syringocrinus and about 20 (yes I said 20) homocystites. Here is one that I prepped this morning using Low PSI with dolomite and a .010 nozzle. Prep time about 2 hours. I also found about 5 crinoids that appear to be complete but it will be hard to tell what they are until they are prepped. I though this was a pretty spectacular association (4 trilo species and a well centered cystite) Considering that all I saw was the homocystites tail outline in the matrix, I think I got very lucky and the prep came out decent. Based on the 20 homocystites found the preservation on this one is typical. I will try to take a group picture once they are all prepped. 1 Homocystites (about 75 mm in length if was not curled) 1 almost complete ceraurus (about 15 mm long) (missing one of pygidium spines) overlapping the homocystites 2 inverted calyptaulax cephaplons 1 achetella cephalon 1 isotelus inverted partial