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Showing results for tags 'elrathia'.
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I decided to take a break from house work and the Hadrosaur pubis I'm working on, and prep my first trilobite. It comes from the Wheeler Shale. I'm pretty sure it's an Elrathia kinglii it's missing it's cheeks and some of its head. Here's how it started : And here is how it ended: All in all I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. I used my Dremel to get close and then my blaster to take the rest of the matrix off. The only hiccup I had was right at the edge of the rock - some of the head blew off and was gone in the blink of an eye. After I was done I was looking at it under my scope, and lo and behold, there was another trilobite I'd totally missed near the cheek! It looks like a little 3mm agnostid trilobite. Luckily I didn't blow it off during prep. I have loads more bones and trilobites to just through, and look forward to showing you guys when I'm done.
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From the album: My collection in progress
Elrathia kingii Meek 1870 Location: Wheeler Formation, Utah, USA Age: 507 Mya (Wuliuan, Middle Cambrian) Measurements: 3x2 cm Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Arthropoda Subphylum: Trilobitomorpha Class: Trilobita Order: Ptychopariida Suborder: Ptychopariina Family: Alokistocaridae -
Not just teeth and shells: my fossil collection also includes trilobites, the real protagonists of the Palaeozoic era. The first is a beautiful specimen of Morocops ovatus. Detail of the cephalon area:
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I have what I believe to be a small elrathia kingii (please correct me if I’m wrong). But it has a small, curious ”horn” of sorts. Can someone help me identify what I am looking at?
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From the album: Robs Fossil Collection
Elrathia kingii Trilobite Age: Cambrian. Location: House Range, Millard county, Utah, US Trilobite measures: 1 cm x 0.8 cm Plate measures: 5.5 cm x 5.5 cm -
Hey all, I bought this trilobite from a seller today and was wondering if anyone could help me ID it. I'm pretty sure its from Utah, and I think it's an Elrathia, but I just want to get some other thoughts or opinions. In the bottom left there seems to be part of an agnostid, but I could be wrong. The seller said that they didn't know where it came from unfortunately.
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Elrathia trilobites are very common, they're small, have no spines, and have a lot of preserved molts. On the other hand you have rare trilobites with spines covering its whole body or trilobites that exceed half a meter. These are not as common, but spines and size seem to be an evolutionary advantage. Why are the trilobites that seem to have the best chance of survival the rarest ones? Or is it just a marketing play?
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Question for the prep people out there. I have a handful of unprepped, but we’ll exposed Elrathia trilobites I’m hoping to clean up, but I don’t have any scribes or wire brushes. Are there any simple alternatives I can use to polish these guys? Cheers!
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Hello again, still going back through my neglected trilobites. This one I had labeled in my mind as Elrathia+ Agnostid fragment. After learning a little more about trilobite ontogeny (https://www.trilobites.info/ontogeny.htm) I wonder if the partial agnostid may rather be a larva of Elrathia? Or can I rule that out by size? I hope the "adult" is sufficient for scale comparison. The more you learn the less you know. Best Regards, J
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Hello I'm a newbie fossil collector (and newly active member) who happens to several interesting fossils for a decent price from our favorite auctions sites 1st is are Knightia. The seller claims that they are not restored or enhanced 2nd set are 4 Spinosaurus teeth. The seller claims that cracks have been repaired, but no restoration or composition has been made (Pictures 2-9 of teeth in pairs) 3rd is a Lycoptera which the seller claims is not restored or enhanced 4th are plates of Elrathia Trilobites from Wheeler Formation 5th are Fossil Ferns from Llewellyn Formation 6th is a Hyracodon jaw fragment I would like to ask if the sellers' description of the items are accurate and/or if they are restored, enhanced or composites. Cheers!
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I’m looking for a complete high quality Elrathia kingii still in matrix. If there are multiple on the same plate even better. I have a variety of fossils from the Chengjiang biota and several Devonian trilobites (Penn Dixie and Morocco) available for trade. PM if you’re interested! Thanks.
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Utah trilobites and Wyoming fish surplus
Fossil-Hound posted a topic in Member-to-Member Fossil Trades
I have a surplus of fossils from Utah and Wyoming. From UT I have a bunch of Elrathia and Asaphiscus trilobites. From Wyoming fossil fish mainly Knightia but I do have one Mioplosus. What I'm looking for are trilobites outside of Utah, ammonites, and shark teeth or any other kind of tooth such as Therapod, Cetacean, crocodile, etc. Here's a picture of some of the fossils. I also have some Chesapecten from Maryland sitting in my desk drawers.
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A little help for the new collector.
Bone guy posted a topic in Is It Real? How to Recognize Fossil Fabrications
Hello TFF! I'm a fairly new collector and I have to say fossil collecting is the best king of addiction. So I was considering getting this little Elrathia kingii, and because this is would be one of my first trilobites I was wondering if it's restored in any way??? Also is the species kingii or something else?
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Well, i thought I'd show my primitive prepping skills. This is all rather unnecessary as Tony @ynothas already done this thread here and probably better and the pieces shown were kindly donated to me as well. So treat this as a repeat of what Tony does better. Hey ho. So these are the three pieces that Kind Tony sent me. 1. Notice this Elrathia kingii (1.2 cm long) has a break on the anterior margin (cause of death?) .and an upside down Itagnostus interstrictus (5.5 mm) above it and a piece of another to the right of it. 2. This Elrathia (1.8 cm long) has another ones cephalon stuck to its cephalon and some serious damage on the right side pleura. 3. This one is upside down in the matrix. (2.3 cm long) All my prepping was done balancing the specimens on my knee and using a jeweller's loupe to see and a board pin to do the actual prepping. Some water and saliva were also involved, but that was all. First I carefully cleaned as much of the matrix off the first two specimens as i could using the pin and then dug around the third piece so I could 'pop' it out of the matrix. Then I dug all around the other two specimens with the pin and popped them out of the matrix. Here is the third one popped out and with a bit of prep already completed. Sorry for the dreadful photo, but wifey and her camera phone weren't about so i started prepping and then took this photo with my computer as i was impatient to continue. When it was first popped only a tiny bit of the glabella was showing clear of matrix. Here i have popped the Itagnostus before popping the Elrathia.
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- antelope springs
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I just prepped this Elrathia kingii I found last year. It’s more 3-dimensional than most of them. It also has a slight reverse C-shape curve to it. It’s left side was covered with matrix when found, but after removing the matrix, almost nothing was actually found under it. Looks like something took a big bite out of it. Can anyone hypothesize what the damage actually is caused by? Link to images: https://imgur.com/gallery/wzDoG
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A rangeomorph holdfast trace fossil from the Ediacara formation, Rawnsley quartzite of the Flinders Range, South Australia. This specimen is Medusina mawsoni, so called because it was until recently thought to be a jellyfish, but is now believed to be the attachment point of a fractal rangeomorph as Charniodiscus is the point of anchorage for Charnia sp. This one may have been the holdfast point for some species of Rangea. The diameter of the outer circle is 1.5 cm and the fossil is estimated to be 555 million years old.
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My wife and I just got back from a 1700-mile road trip from our home in Northern California to do some trilobite hunting in Utah and Nevada. It was a 5-day trip, with a total of about 8 hours of digging spread across 2 days, but well worth it. I will give you the highlights here. After driving across California, we spent the first night in Reno, then headed out on Highway 50 toward the U-Dig fossil quarry out of Delta, Utah. We spent the second night in Ely, Nevada. Along the way, we stopped in Austin for lunch and helped the owner of a nearby trading post identify an unknown fish fossil they had for sale (you can read about that here). We got to U-Dig mid-morning of the third day and spent half a day there. The last 20 miles is a drive along a well-maintained dirt road (good enough that with my stock 4WD SUV I could drive 50-55 mph along most of it). Other people on this forum have posted about their experiences at U-Dig, so I won’t spend a lot of time repeating the basics. We were pleased with the support we got from Gene and if you’ve never been there, I would recommend it. This was my second time there (the first was 8 years ago), and my wife’s first time. I have to say we weren’t as successful as on my last visit, but still got a good haul. Most, however, were only molts or partials, we got very few full trilobites. I’ve included some photos below. Lots of prep work still remaining, and I’ll probably split several of the slabs again to see what else I might find. If you go, one word of advice. They will provide you with a chisel-edge rock hammer, a 2-lb sledge and large chisel, and a bucket to hold everything you find. I brought all my own stuff and am glad I did. They show you how to split the shale with the chisel edge of the hammer, but I found that to be a fairly coarse way to do it. I found it much easier to use thin rock-splitting chisels like these. They are cheap, so I’d recommend you take one or two along. The next day we headed out to Caliente, Nevada, to dig at the Oak Springs Trilobite Site just off Highway 93. There is no fee to dig here, which means there is no one to advise you, you’re on your own. This is another Cambrian site with the possibility of finding several species of Olenellus trilobites. We got there just after lunch and spent the afternoon there. The parking area is about a quarter mile from the highway down a good dirt road (but not a 50-mph road!). Most people park there and walk a quarter mile along a developed path to the dig. If you’ve done your homework, though, you’ll know you can continue another short distance and park just at the base of the swale where the trilobites are. That makes it an easy walk, especially if you are carrying a lot of tools. in addition to my tool bag, I was carrying a Harbor Freight pry bar and my brand new Estwing PaleoPick, so I was happy to shorten the walk. You can tell when you are at the site because it is littered with broken pieces of shale and there are potholes all around where people have been digging. We spent the first couple of hours without any luck as I moved from one location to another. Then I moved to yet another location and immediately saw a cephalon so I knew my luck was changing. It turned out to be a mini mother-lode of cephalons but no full trilobites, which apparently are very rare. While we found a few cephalons among the loose pieces of shale, I had much better success digging out larger slabs and splitting them. I haven’t yet gone through them in detail to make good identifications but they look primarily like Olenellus species, which are what you will predominantly find. Some sample photos below. Given that I didn’t have to pay to dig and it took considerable effort to find anything, I have to say this was the more enjoyable day of digging. But if you go, be aware that many people who go there don’t find anything. The day we were there I only saw one other person. (He tagged along with my success to dig nearby.) On the way home, we took Nevada Highway 375, known as “The Extraterrestrial Highway” because it runs close to the infamous Area 51. We stopped in the tiny hamlet of Rachel to visit the Little A’le’Inn, a souvenir shop, diner, and motel. If you get the chance, be sure to stop in. On my last U-Dig adventure I spent a night there, which was quite an experience (you can read about it here). I don’t think it has changed much in the last 8 years except there were more tourists there this time. Overall, we had a great time. Once I sort through everything I will post a few samples for help with identification. The sign along US Highway 6: U-Dig office: Steve digging (friendly dogs belong to another digger): The haul back at home: Elrathia kingii (I think it's a molt): Small Elrathia kingii: Peronopsis (needs more prep):
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Since my move to Utah two weeks ago I have been dying to return to U-Dig. My wife allowed me to go on one condition, that I would be back home by 3:30 in time for her brothers farewell party as he is going on his Mormon mission next Wednesday. I ended up calling Shayne the quarry owner, explaining my dilemma and asked him if I could start digging at 7:00 am, two hours before the site opened. Surprisingly he approved and I called Bevan. Bevan was going to man the station at U-Dig so Shayne wanted me to give him a heads up. I awoke on Saturday morning at 3:30 am and hit the road at 3:45. I was at the site by 6:45 and digging by 7:00 am just in time to see the sun come up over the hills and the sun rays radiate off of the storm clouds from an early morning storm. Had a phenomenal trip. Dug up fifteen Asaphiscus wheeleri, eight Elrathia kingii, and one Perenopsis. If you ever get the chance to dig here do it. You will not come away disappointed. I met a gentleman named Nick from Syracuse, New York and we talked about all the neat sites in western New York, primarily Penn Dixie. Bevan volunteered me to show three guys who had never dug the Windom shale on how to find good trilobites. We all walked away with some great finds. Breathtaking view at sunrise. Notice the dispersing rain clouds. An omen for a perfect day. I certainly miss Calvert Cliffs in Maryland along with some other eastern coast marine fossil locations but the view here in Utah is absolutely sublime. The nothingness of the desert has a certain beauty to it. Witnessed two antelope on my way out and one of them was matching the speed of my car at 40-45 MPH these amazing animals can top out at 55 MPH and they need to be that fast because Mountain Lions also referred to as Cougars or Puma top out at 50 MPH. I was certainly on the lookout for scorpion, rattlesnake, and Cougars but didn't see any. Rattlesnake seem to be the most common and dangerous. An assortment of Asaphiscus and Elrathia. Most are molts but some are complete or near complete. The bottom left is complete (2 inch) and bottom right is near complete. Both are Asaphiscus wheeleri and large for their size. This is the find of the day and more uncommon than Elrathia kingii. This is a prone two inch Asaphiscus wheeleri. Bevan noted there is some oxidation but that could be prepped off. Not sure what to do with it. Might need to send this one to a professional *cough* @Malcolmt *cough* though I do owe some of these to my other Canadian friend *cough* @Kane *cough Disarticulated Elrathia kingii. I normally don't see them like this and there are some orange flakes where the top side broke off. I believe this one is a complete specimen and not a molt. Interesting preservation for this specimen. Found this large Elrathia kingii out in the open next to a bunch of rock with hammer marks. Someone must have been splitting rock and this specimen popped out. Not the best Asaphiscus but should make for some good preparation practice. Large Asaphicus wheeleri molt. For most of the day I was targeting these as opposed to the more common Elrathia kingii and found a really good location where a bunch of Asaphiscus where colocated. 1.5 inch Elrathia kingii. Should prep out nicely from a gentle dremmel brush. Another near two inch A. wheeleri. This one appears to be a molt. The disarticulated E. kingii. A collection of E. kingii. Most are molts. One large slab contained about fifteen of these but I didn't want to haul it back to the car. It was a great day. E. kingii. Should be complete. Needs some prep work. Close up of the big one. Large Asaphiscus molt and there appears to be another inverted over to the left. The yellow color on this Asaphiscus is interesting and I believe Bevan said this was oxidation. I'll need to do some more research as to why this happens. This would have been a phenomenal specimen but the glabella is missing. I'll give it to a friend. Disarticulated Asaphiscus molt. Elrathia that should prep nicely. This one is interesting. It appears to be a complete Asaphiscus but is inverted revealing the ventral side. If anyone is up for a prep challenge let me know and I'll send this to you.The color is a dark brown and should make for a very nice specimen. Love the brown color on this Asaphiscus. They usually don't come in this color and the brown is a result of oxidation. Another E. kingii in need of some prep love. Sometimes you'll find what I call ghosts where the specimen is preserved under a thin layer of shale. These generally prep out well albeit this one is a partial molt. Saving it for some prep practice. Some more molts. Partial Asaphiscus that will make for some good prep practice.
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Collected on a field trip to U-Dig Utah and prepared at the U-Dig site station. After a light mechanical brush exposed the shale, mineral oil was applied with another brush for a polished finish.
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From the album: General Gallery
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Hello Everyone! First off, I am excited to be part of this amazing forum! I am excited to be here and it is really cool to be part of a community where questions are open and people are so willing to help other out! I have never operated a forum before so this is a first for me and this is my first post in my first forum.... so needless to say I am a little excited! lol Please know that my writing style may change over time as I learn about writing in a forum and about posting my own work here on this forum. I am hopping to keep a relaxed, but professional forum running. I am hoping to also post at least once a week during the summer. Once I go back to school in the fall I hope to keep posting, but if it was like last semester, that may not be possible. I will post as much as I can though, that you have my guarantee! Last semester I took a paleobiology class here at the U of U. I throughly enjoyed it, I especially loved the invertebrate sections on cephalopod, arthropods, and the phylum echinodermata. I unfortunately only have a small selection of crinoid stems, so there is not much to post about there. I knew about ammonites (a cephalopod) and trilobites (an arthropod). I did not know much though. I new ammonites had a round shell that was coiled in on it's self and that was about it. I knew that trilobites got more complicated as they diversified and that they had 3 lobes, but that was it. Then I took the class and learned a whole lot about them! It was so much fun! What I learned about them is not the scope of this forum, if you want to know more about them I would recommend the text book we used. It is very good at explaining everything to inexperianced people (such as my self) and has lots of references for additional reading. The book is called "Bringing Fossils To Life An Introduction to Paleobiology" 3rd edition. It is quite a remarkable book. The fossils were collected in the House Range in Millard Country outside of Dugway Utah. I collected a few pounds of shale and it was quite full of trilobite fossils. The environment they lived in was a shallow marine environment. The matrix around the fossils is a beige color. I use a SE 979fSG Flexible Shaft Grinder, Chuck, Pedal, and Switch. You can pick one up from amazon for $70 or so. I also use steel saw blades for the Dremel tool and some steel brushes for it as well. I have other tools for the dremel but have not used them yet. I use these because I do not have access to any other tools for cutting stone. Please be safe while using this. I strongly recommend gloves, safety glasses, and a face mask to filter out dust, i would also recommend hearing protection. It can be loud at times. I also wear a white lab coat to keep dust off my and my cloths. For fossil identification I have been using a small guide to trilobites that my professor gave me. I looked on line for definitive trilobite's located in the Marjum Formation and was not successful. I do not claim to be a trilobite expert, and as such I may have made mistakes with their identification. If you feel I was wrong please feel free to let me know what you think they are! There are several samples that looked so much like they were Elrathia or Marjumia (these will be posted later) that I may have been wrong in my identification. All these fossils are from the Marjum formation and I found them so I know they are all real. So here are some pictures I took of them. If they are too small let me know and I will try to upload larger pictures. I have also labeled each so if people are talking about a specific one they can reference them exactly. B refers to bathyuriscis and the number corresponds to the order I took the pictures in. I will add other spices later and they will have a different letter abbreviation. I do have other bathyuriscus fossils pictures to post, I will add them later. Right now I just want to get started! B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 B10 B11 B12 B13 B14 B15 B16 B17
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From the album: Trilobites
13x9x2cm. A nice plate from the Wheeler Shale, Middle Cambrian in the Antelope Range, Utah. -
From the album: Trilobites
From House Range, Millard County, Utah. Middle Cambrian Wheeler Formation. Thanks to Tony (ynot) for the trade!
