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I got this eurypterid this weekend at a fossil show. Considering the price of the other eurypterids there I think I got a good deal at $30. But the reason I'm posting this here is because I want to know what or if I should do to clear some sediment off of the fossil. I haven't really done much with preparing fossils so I figured I'd hear what you all have to say. Thanks in advance.

My Silurian eurypterid watercolor from Japanese artist Tasashi Ito, based on a New York specimen. Unfortunatly the fossil is a model.

Hello from Portland, Oregon! I am brand new to this forum. I am the president of the Oregon Agate and Mineral Society and while my primary focus over the years has been as a mineral collector I have always had a fascination with fossils. Over the past 4 years I have had the privelage to work closely with such noted paleontology experts as William Orr, Steven Manchester (paleobotony), Greg Carr, Greg Dardis and other notables in and around the Pacific Northwest. My collection of fossils has expanded considerably in that time too. While I do have some Jurassic and Triassic period dinosaur fossils, as well as some mammal and bird fossils (ex. Tom Bones), my primary fossil collecting interest is in ammonites and eurypterids (I only own one eurypterid fossil but love it none the less). I am hoping to learn more about my particular fossil collecting interests through this forum.

[uPDATE 05 Okt. 2013 ] Update #1 : Click here to go to the new images posting Update #2 : Click here to go to the new images posting Hi! So. This is my second post, and I hope I read up well enough in the regulations & suggestions section to make it a good one. The title is a bit of a gig - although I've been steadily collecting fossils around here (Bierzo, Leon, Spain), it's nothing much spectacular probably. Besides that I'm the biggest possible amateur you can imagine I'm also extremely picky (tip missing - ditch it!. Cracked? Ditch it! Boring color? Ditch it! Low contrast? Ditch it!) and not to mention quite clumsy. Do not attempt to chop off interesting fossils from bigger shards of fragile stone when you are me. Really. The last few years (I've started collecting roughly in 2004) I have started to hunt for new species, and have confined myself to 'beautiful' specimen (rare rock types, rare colors/shape etc) if it's a common type. So all in all I have two boxes and maybe a total of 80 stones, of which the majority is pebble-sized (I seem to like small ones for some reason..- they have amulet-like properties to me!). I will post about 25 of them here in several updates. I guess my photography and design backgrounds mean I start to look at fossils more and more visually. To compensate for this I have been steadily reading up on carboniferous era fossils and in general, the landscape/climate back then. This and my great interest in evolution have helped to better understand what I am digging up / finding. The below fossils (I will post further updates this week) are a number of samples that I find interesting (and often puzzling). With each I give my opinion on what it might be, but I figure that I'm going to be wrong the majority of times in my guesses (everything I find seems to be part of one or two species...root, trunk, leaf, branches, other leaves, more leaves! argh!). Help is much appreciated ! All fossils are exclusively from a 2x2km zone behind my house, on a little mountain not far from Bembibre, el Bierzo, Leon. Some are from the bottom of the mountain, some from the top. The height difference is +- 300 meters. Rock-types have been varying from dark, coal-like to yellow-white calcium rich materials. I know little of geology and have made as few notes to finding circumstances as is humanely possible. Sorry [edit : Added geographical local map of my fossil locations ] 1) My absolute favorite - because I hope it's of non-plant origin. I've been on a quest to find something fauna-ish for almost a decade! Note the fine texture, which I have read might be bone related? *crosses fingers* [edit] Likely Adelophthalmus asturica 2) Trunk or root of some sort. Different from my other trunk specimen which are clearly lepidodendrons. I guess this could be a more poorly conserved specimen that has lost it's distinct texture? Diameter is roughly 6.5-7.5cm. 3) I have only found shards of this fossil-type in almost a decade. This is a unique specimen to me, and I have no clue what it might be. [edit] probably Asterophylliites equisetiformis 4) More trunk (Diameter : 6cm) What I have read this should be a cast of the central canal of a Calamite stem? (how does it form?) [edit] probably Calamites cistii, internal cast of stem 05) I'm at a total loss on this one. I think I've seen similar imprints on black, coal-like stone with a glassy-oily look? [edit] perhaps a lycophyte stem (compare Syringodendron) 6) I've started to like these high-contrast, cute little fossils more and more. Is this Sphenopteris? Is there further distinction? [edit] probably Sphenophyllum, possibly Rhacopteris (Unlikely : Palmatopteris) 7) The bonus image. I am 99.9% sure this is *not* a fossil. But I am curious how it formed, what it might be ? Anyone? Right. I hope people can enlighten me a little. I am going to make a website with all species I can manage to find around here, because I want to build as complete a database of the ' forest' type that existed here once as possible. I would love to learn more about what plant species or sub-species I am looking at, but also would be very thrilled to learn what *part* of a plant it comes from and/or how the fossilization influenced if worth noting? Thank you very much. Trying to learn

Here it is May 24th and when I left the house this morning it was 3 degrees Celsius , minus 1 with the wind chill and to cap it all off, it was drizzling...... Thought twice about setting out and going at 6:00AM. Sorta glad I went. I have not posted for a while because I started thinking that I was making these eurypterid things look too easy..... Believe me they are not... ask anyone who has had the good fortune to be able to hunt for them. It hard work and not for anyone who is out for instant gratification. Got to the quarry , with coffee and muffins for the staff there. I was down at my pit that I have been working on for the last four weeks by 8:15AM. Unfortunately my pit had about a foot of water in the bottom of it. Was surprised that I was not the first to arrive , Lothar was just getting settled in as I arrived. Actually was a fairly crowded day for this locale , by 9:30 there were 7 of us (myself, Mr. T; Mr. S; Carl, Lothar, Kevin and his not so thrilled by the end of the day lady friend) I know for sure that I will never get my wife to the quarry in this lifetime so, props to him..... (Yes Peter it is the Carl of the ROM fish find fame) Moved to higher ground to escape the water and wasted about 2 hours finding nothing. Came back to my pit around lunch time. Had my boots on so played in the water a bit. Did I mention it was cold and windy. Was finding a ton of heads, which is a always a good sign, larger debris tends to fall out at the same place. If you are only finding tiny bits you will never find large bits. Like sized fossils deposit in the current together. Found a very nice paddle that was from a monster sized eurypterid. Looked like it might continue under a bedding plain , unfortunately it did not, based on the paddle size it would have been a 12 incher. Started splitting the rock all around the disarticulated paddle , thinking I might find the rest.... however no such luck However within 1 foot of that large paddle I came across this little guy. (Actually it is not little at just over 6 inches it is typical of the size that you find at this site). What was not typical however was its state of preservation and its orientation. It is perfectly preserved and is a very well balanced specimen with no distortion or post mortem curving. Mr. S who is quite well know in the eurypterid collecting world commented that it was the nicest specimen he had seen in a number of years. I like that it appear to be fairly fat compared to its length....... What do you think...... I think this one is pretty special a perfect positive and negative each removed as a single piece (which almost never happens) and it will become part of my permanent collection. (Sorry Roger, not giving this one away!!!!) Thanks to Mr T. for his rock saw........... Unfortunately no one else had any luck today with the eurypterids although Mr T. found a massive innocolus plant, that was very nice. Terrible weather but a great day collecting with good people. As always I have an open invitation out to any of you who want to come to the great white north here (Canada) and spend a day collecting eurypterids with me.....There are about 4 of us on the forum who are regulars hunting the elusive eurypterid.... Just think Shamalama if you had not forgot your passport you could very well have found this one............ Actually looking forward to your next trip up when you won't dare forget your passport. Do I dare enter it in Fossil of the month????????

Well, I must say that I think a great but very tiring day was had by all at the Eurypterid quarry. Had been looking forward to meeting up with this group for some time. We had quite a turnout from the forum. Ludwigia from Germany, Shamalama from Philadelphia, Fossilcrazy from New York, Pleecan, QuarrymanDave and myself from the forum and two friends from Rochester who are not on the forum. Just thought I would upload this post as a bit of a placeholder for the rest of the group to make commentary on the day. A bit of a motley looking crew....... Ludwigia, FossiCrazy, Malcolmt, QuarrymanDave, Tod, Shamalama Pleecan took the picture so he is no where to be seen. As was our other non forum friend Sam (he likes to wander off) Most of us were there by 8:00 and stayed the duration. Great weather, no rain started out quite warm but got very cold and a bit windy later in the afternoon We got the big equipment out to start the day off right....... No sense holding back the big guns.......... Thats Roger taking a picture.... not sure why my camera took black and white but it looks cool anyway......... Point of interest they actually did a blast at the other end of the quarry quite a distance away from us. Made the ground tremble.... I had never been in a quarry before when they did an actual blast. Unfortunately, not a lot of eurypterids were found I found a mangled almost complete that was very twisted in 3 dimensions and one of our friends from New York found a nice large 11 inch eurypterid which unfortunately came out of the quarry floor in far too many pieces. The find of the day was a complete phylocarid (extremenly rare in this formation usually we only find tails) Also found were about a half dozen small plants, Cooksonia and algal blobs, a bit of an out of place brachiopod, a potentially interesting ostracod, assorted disarticulated eurypterid heads and telsons, a cephalopod in not very good shape, a disarticulated pylocarid tail. Ludwigia busted rock pretty much solid for 8 hours but was only finding bits and pieces. We made sure he went back to Germany with one though.... can't come all that way and not take a eurypterid home........ Shamalama kept finding interesting things .......though nothing complete. Pleecan spent a lot of time socializing........ which is what he likes to do. QuarrymanDave found a few things that he took home including a very small partial eurypterid... FossilCrazy cleared away a very nice looking pit.... wins prettiest pit of the day..... but did not find the big one he was looking for..... Regardless of what was found new friendships were made and old friendships renewed........ just a great group to collect with.................. Hopefully some of the others from the group will comment on the day and post pictures that they took.

I was at my usual site near Niagara Falls hunting eurypterids on Friday with two other collecting friends from the USA and although it was not a great day for eurypterids, the day turned out pretty good. As far as eurypterids go all I found was the following specimen but it has excelent paddle preservation that is folded over the body like an egyptian mummy. The coxa from the underside are also folded over and visible which is very unusual for a dorsally preserved specimen. What turned out to be the find of the day was that I found a horseshoe crab. As a pleasant surprise Peter from the forum( Pleecan) showed up just as I found this. Which was fortunate for me as after he ate his lunch he got out his rock and cut both of these out for me. I also have the counterpart to the crab but have not got a picture of it at this point, it is still in the trunk of my car. This is an order of magnitude rarer than the eurypterids at this site. I am aware of about 50 eurypterids collected this year that were over 80% complete. I am only aware of this and one other horseshoe crab being found this year. The following pictures were taken in situ by a well known and respected collector at this site Sam and are quite hard to see. (Perhaps Peter will do some magic and post an enhanced version.) I was actually quite surprised to have noticed it. It was about 1 foot from the partial eurypterid that is shown above. It was on the same bedding plane as the eurypterid about 1 foot to the southwest. . This was found in the Williamsville A formation of the Bertie waterlime. So the age is Upper Silurian At about 35 millimeters in length I am told that it is very large for this location where they are more normally 10 to 15 millimeters in size. My assumption at this point is that it is a Pseudoniscus clarkie Technically it is probably not correct to call it a horseshoue crab. Any other thoughts...... I have also heard of these called bunaia woodwardi but some believe these to be the same species. They are listed as separate in my book Fossil Ecosystems of North America.

It was a goergeous 22 degrees celcius today which is about 10 degrees above normal. Decided it would be a good day to do a little cleaning and organizing in the garage. Had a pile of eurypterids in the garage and decided to put them in some flats. Well once I had them out in the sun on the sidewalk I thought perhaps a group picture was in order , so here it is...... Going hunting for eurypterids with Ludwigia, Shamalama, Pleecan and Quarryman Dave tomorrow, very much looking forward to it, should be a great day with some great people. Also a few non forum members are coming as well. 7 people at the quarry at one time that is pretty much a crowd!!!!!!!!. I will be taking a camera and try to get some pictures but then, I am not the best photographer. Perhaps I can convince Peter to take some pictures!!!!!!!!!!! I am really hoping that there will be some good finds tomorrow, not many collecting days left before the snows hit up here.