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Hello everyone, When I joined the forum I shared a few of my Buffalo, New York trilobites but only my rare Pseudodechenella rowi trilobites. I said I was eventually share some other trilobites so here I am haha. The winter has kinda been a bummer recently in upstate New York but we just had a freak warm day recently. In the future I want to share my Eldredgeops collection, brachs, cephalopods, plant specimens but I’m not going to rush it. In this post I’m going to share some of my Greenops sp. that I have collected exclusively from the wanakah shale on the Lake Erie shore south of Buffalo, New York. I think I may have an example of Greenops barberi and Greenops grabaui in my collection but I guess I’m not 100% confident in the ID. These 4 are probably my best specimens I’ve managed. For reasons most likely related to environment they are not common and they do not like to preserve well. I would consider them pretty rare actually. Ill follow up with a few more photos of some “lower shelf” specimens I’ve found lol.

Hello everyone, I kept these from fossil hunts in buffalo years ago cause I knew they were different. I read they split Greenops boothi into 4 different species with 2 variations of Greenops and 2 variations of Bellacartwrightia in 1997. I have some pieces that I’m not really sure which trilobite I’m dealing with. I just know it’s not the Greenops grabaui variety. The cephalon came from basic Wanakah shale that surrounds the “trilo beds” as I was moving blocks. The pygidiums came from the “trilo beds” of the lower Wanakah shale at the Lake Erie shore in Buffalo, New York. I only have “a field guide to Devonian paleontology” by Karl Wilson and “Geology of 18 mile creek” by Grabau for reference. I can’t find anything reliable on the internet either so I’m curious if the kind folks on the forum have an opinion. I do have another book on Devonian paleontology of New York coming in the mail that is more recent but the new paper was written in 1997 and this book is a 1994 book so it may not have the update either. The last 2 pics are comparisons of the pygidium of a Greenops grabaui with the specimens in question to show you why I think they are different. I also just added a last photo of the other side of one of my unsure specimens that’s actually a full trilo but damaged beyond belief...may not help with the ID but maybe it could lol. Thanks Al

About a month ago I went to Penn with two fossil buddies and they both found prone greenops. Sadly I did not find one. However both of these greenops were split between the positive and negative and probably were missing some skin as the material was quite flaky. For one of my friends this was his first ever find of a prone greenops. Prone greenops that are nicely laid out are a very rare find in the Windom shale. Most of the ones I have found from there or others that I have prepped for people are fully, partially enrolled or distorted. So to my fossil buddy this was a bit of a special find. We wrapped up the two pieces in tin foil in the field and I agreed to take it with me and prep it for him. Well zoom ahead a month in time and I am going out with him last week to collect and he asks how is his greenops coming, whereby I realize that I have not only not started it ,but in my senility had forgotten I had it and had no clue where it was. Well when I got home it turns out that I had never unpacked the bucket of fossils from that trip and low and behold his fossil was packed just as we had left it. A careful look at both parts under the scope confirmed my opinion that the bug was in pretty rough shape , but a prone greenops, not to mention perhaps his first ever prone warranted we attempt to bring it back to life. Unfortunately I did not take any pics until a ways into the prep but here is what I did to start. 1. Washed the mud off both plates scrubbing with a tooth brush 2. Squared up what would become the fossil plate with the diamond gas saw 3. Cut out as small as possible a square from the top piece of the matrix that contained the top part of the greenops using my 7 inch tile saw with diamond blade 4. On a belt sander using aluminum oxide 120 grit thinned the top piece as much as safely possible to help minimize my prep time later. 5. Using super thin cyanoacrylate glue reattached the top portion to the main slab clamping tightly with a c-clamp. Asusual all prep was done under a zoom scope at 10x to 20x magnification using a Comco abrasion unit and in this case a German Pferd MST 31 scribe exclusively.. Not a lot of scribing was done other than to outline the bug as the skin was not in great shape. Abrasion was pretty much done with a .18 and .10 nozzle using 40 micron previously used dolomite at 30 PSI. Here is the bug after about an our of prepping . I have outlined in red where you can still see the outline of the section that was glued down. A lot of people do not realize that many of the fantastic trilobites you see on the market have actually been glued back together because the splits are often through the bug. I once did a Moroccan trilobite that was in 7 pieces when I received it Here is the bug after another 40 minutes Took some pictures of the prep but frankly they ended up too blurry to use so here is the prep after abrasion is complete and after I have repaired a lot of the parts that broke of in the split. I tend to use a white repair material and always take a picture to let the owner know what has been repaired Here is the bug after coloration applied . The repairs were allowed to cure overnight before coloration and a bit of extra carving to clean up spots.Just waiting for me to do a final cleanup tomorrow after everything has cured a bit more. A long way from being the worlds most pristine or perfect bug but I am relatively pleased that we were able to breath some new life into an ailing bug. Totally prep time about 3 1/2 hours over 4 days. I suspect the owner will be pleased with the result. I have seen people toss bugs in the field that were in this type of shape. For those of you who just need to know the bug is 27mm x 18 mm A slightly different view

The high axial lobe of this pygidium reminds me of the Greenops. Should I put it in that collection camp ? Also, he has a little hitchiker riding piggyback. I assume it is an Eldredgeops that's been a bit distorted. Or is it something different ? Cheers,

You know I am very fortunate to be able to collect in a lot of special places and with a lot of great fossil friends. Over the years I have had the good fortune to meet many of you and even prep a few fossils for some of you that are patient enough and brave enough to trust your gem to what is for the first time a stranger. Arkona, Bowmanville , Brechin, Ridgemount are all special places that I collect....... but equally special is New York States very own Penn Dixie Fossil Park. A real gem. Now some of you might think that Penn Dixie is not for the serious collector ......... but you would be dead wrong. Just ask a few of our Forum Members that came away with exquisite and mighty rare Bellcartwrightia from there last season. I was fortunate to be able to prep a few of them . I even found one earlier this season myself but alas as my post on the forum showed it turned out to be a less than stellar partial but none the less the only one in my collection. Well I was at Penn twice in the last week and a half, once to get in Jay's (Devonian Digger) way as he was getting the area ready for the upcoming "Dig With The Experts". Both times I went with Greg from the forum here. He is my designated driver it seems so far this year.......(Dave you may have been replaced).. You see I have this phobia and cannot drive over large bridges. Well anyway back to the story....... Since I spent so much time helping Jay (getting in his way) on the Friday I needed to go back this Sunday to actually look seriously for some fossils. Kane from the forum as you can see from his posts was there later on the Friday afternoon just as we were finishing up with the excavator. For some reason only my cart and saw ended up in any of his pictures. I The Friday was a reasonable day as I came away with about 15 complete eldredgeops and a so so bug that will be either a greenops or a bellacartwrightia once I get around to prepping it. Greg and I had a pretty good day on this past Sunday. I came away with probably 20 to 25 complete trilobites and Greg seemed to have a fair amount in his bucket but only asked me to cut out one large prone Eldredgeops for him. Anyway on to the topic at hand . ... Since greenops and bella's at Penn seem to occur in clusters On Sunday I went to the area I found the greenops on the Friday and I found what looked to be a promising Greenops. Both were in the first inch of the Smoke Creek (no Jay I will not tell you exactly where). For those of you going to "The Dig WIth The Experts" there is plenty of this material that has been piled up for you in an area that is off limits till the 19th of May. Jay and I did take a walk about the piles and we can see that the material for this year'd dig looks to be excellent. We both saw complete trilobites, brachs and cepholapods waiting to be removed from the rock. I must say we were both very good and made sure that no one (especially Kane) collected from the out of bounds area. So here is the promising Greenops that I found on Sunday as collected, prior to any preparation. I did not get a picture in the field but as is typical of how I collect ( I am an excavator) it was in a 200 plus pound slab that I removed from a bench that I was excavating. Don't look like much.... obviously the eye is less than perfect........ but looks can be deceiving.. Here it is again after a couple minutes of prep... After 1/2 hour it is actually starting to look like a fossil albeit a compressed , twisted and somewhat deformed one... but that gives it character Prep is being done on a COMCO MB1000 at about 50 PSI using 40 micron dolomite. using .015, .018, .025 and .030 Comco nozzles . All work is being done under an Olympus zoom scope at 7x to about 20x magnification Scribe work on this bug is with a British Sealy for the rough work an American ARO for general work and a German Pferd MST31 for the fine work. A real mishmash of nationalities.... Progress continues... At this point definitely thinking that it is a greenops (not a bella) and that it has some potential even though I can see it has eye problems But what is this... is that another bug I see coming into view.... could it be a 2nd Greenops... that had been completely hidden We like hidden bugs as they have the greatest potential to be pristine... nice genal spine poking out of the matrix... probably means the whole cephalon is there Definitely looking like there might be two (which I believe is pretty rare for Penn Dixie).... We find lots of pygidiums but rarely multiple complete greenops on the same plate... Anyway fingers crossed at this point... After a bit more prep work...actually a lot more........ OH No !!!!!!!!!! the second one is inverted ... what a shame.. But what is that under the first greenops.... Oh my goodness its an enrolled large Edgredgeops......... Wait a minute ..... What an I thinking.... no reason to be upset,,,,,I can fix that ..... who says an inverted trilobite has to stay inverted.... Lets just do some prep magic and see what happens.... As you can see the second greenops was flipped in the same location on the matrix. Absolutely pristine killer eyes..... So here is the plate as it currently stands. I still need to make a level base for it once I decide exactly what orientation that I want to present it in. I need to do a final clean at high magnification with a .010 nozzle and low 15 PSI to get the last bits off and remove any abrasive that is still there (the white stuff) Total prep time about 6 hours. I also need to decide if I want to repair the broken right genal spine on the attacking bug and its left eye. I am thinking yes for the genal spine as that is an easy repair as either a mold of another bug's spine or a part from a spare cephalon if I can find a size match(always take home cephalons of greenops that have genal spines you never know when you will need one) Let me know what you think I should do in the way of repair/ restoration. I am thinking a restored genal spince will definately enhance the overall look of the piece I absolutely love this plate and it is staying in my personal collection.To me these are natures work of art. I am calling it "Attack of the Killer Greenie's". When you sit staring at a bug under a scope for many hours doing prep you have lots of time to think. In my wild and crazy imagination I can see this pack of Devonian raptors swooping in on the big fat Phacops ... a moment in time , captured forever. Actually this would just be the random way they ended up postmortem......but it sure is neat to speculate.... Again from a slightly different angle.... I would say that if you can find specimens like this at Penn Dixie it is well worth the trip. (Well I think so anyway) As I understand there are still a few spot available for the Sunday of the Dig With The Experts Weekend. I had hoped to be there helping out with my trusty saw and limited advice ......but as you would have know it my wife scheduled my daughters birthday celebration for the Saturday... So not this year...... Here are a few extra angles... Note that there is a partial greenops or Bella pygidium under the Eldredgeops..... Should I have continued looking......... Naw a some point you have to say it is good to go..

While spending too much time and money at Princess Auto (Canadian version of Harbor Freight), I had picked up a rotary tool to remove some tool marks from a few prepped pieces, as air abrasion seems to take a bit longer. Before I set about doing that in earnest, I thought I may as well do another probing exploration of a shale slab from the Widder Formation from Arkona that has been quite kind to me. This was a piece I had entered in last October's FOTM, but I may as well show the slab's history... The first is how I found it during a trip to Arkona back in October with @Malcolmt, @Shamalama (who got the real winning find of the day with his Eldredgeops iowensis southworthi roller!) and @crinus

Yesterday, Deb and I spent four hours at our usual spot in Arkona looking specifically in the Widder Fm for Greenops and other related goodies. It was one of those lovely days where it isn't too hot or too chilly to get some real hammer time. First up is the bench I'll be working. This is from the very beginning of the day, left and right shots. I've been working on this bench for the last four or so trips. Where all the tools are resting is just below the rich Tornoceras layer wherein are also found a higher probability of full Greenops. Much of the stuff on top of that is bits or just brachs, shale that is dense and shatters or just comes out in chips. For this trip, I'll be focusing on following the "Torno layer" to the left and right of this bench, but it may also require some approaches from the top, and that means a heck of a lot of overburden and blank shale to remove (and I forgot to bring the pickaxe this time - derp!). And this is what it looked like after four hours. Sorry for the choppiness of the image as it was my attempt to stitch three shots in a panoramic. The second shot shows it from a distance, and the third shot where I am gradually connecting my bench to Deb's bench to the left.

Hi group, I think this is another greenops pygidium. If it is, this make a Trilo-Trio, all three species found within inches of one another. The Eldredgeops was peeking out of a natural fracture and looked like it might possibly be more than just a cephalon ..... but, no luck. Only had about ten minutes to look today, hope to get a chance to look more tomorrow. Devonian, Mahantango from eastern WV. Kind regards.

Today I decided to take a trip to Deep Springs Road after work. The weather was great, and after a rather stressful week, I needed some time to myself. I arrived around 4:45, and found the area I wanted to work had been tore up pretty good. There were a lot of big new slabs laying everywhere. Immediately I found a nice Greenops sitting in one of the slabs just staring up at me. I have been collecting fossils for about 17 years and I can't believe I still make the same rookie mistake. Instead of immediately putting the specimen in the car, I had to mess with it to see how much I could reveal in the field. There were some natural cracks so I broke the matrix in my hand and saw that it was a roller, and the genal spine was free of the matrix and looking nice. That is , until it fell off! Now if I just waited till I got home and did this in a controlled setting I could have fixed it. Oh well. So, for a short time I chose to split the slabs.There were lots of decent brachs, bivalves and gastros. But soon the Dipleura siren song was singing in my head. So I cleared out an area, stared prying up slabs of my own. It didn't take lond before I exposed a Dipleura Thorax and pygidium about 2 1/2inches long. Unfortunately the cephalon was missing. But it got my blood flowing. After removing this specimen I pounded my chisel into a very fragile sectionand out popped a broken Dipleura thorax. I could not find more other than a small frag that went with it. Now I am starting to feel pretty good. Also I should mention than I was also seeing isolated body segments, and small cephs and pygs. So then I lift up a fairly decent size slab and as I start to flip it over I can see a big broken Dipleura ceph looking at me. I look at the slab in my hand and can see the nose stuck in the negative. I set the slab down to look closer at to ceph and see the remains of the eyestalks. This cephalon was pretty big and I noticed there were some body segments poking through the matrix behind the cephalon. So I popped the chisel underneath it and all of a sudden out pops the thorax of a huge Dipleura! I couldn't believe how big this was. Even though I have collected big ones in the past I think that if this one was complete this would have been the biggest. At first I didn't know if the pygidium was there, but I knew that I had to try to save the nose that was stuck in the negative. Unfortunately when I tried to break down the slab it was in everything crumbled apart. When I got it home I broke off more matrix and found that the pygidium is not present. But there is an odd body segment that sits off to the side of the thorax. Even though I flubbed the Greenops and didn't come away with any whole Dipleuras, the huge thorax was a cool find. It was really a great hunt and I was only there till 6:30. Here are some pics of my finds: enjoy.

In the past month I have had some really nice trilos pass through my workshop and this one will be no exception. Unfortunately , yet once again it is not mine to keep. It was found by Quarryman Dave on the forum here on Monday May 22, 2017 at Penn Dixie. Penn Dixie does obviously have the potential for you to find something more than the common eldgregeops that it is known for. Jason a forum member who works at Penn Dixie spent his afternoon off getting to know us crazy Canadians. Unfortunately he left shortly before this was found. This find turned a relatively unproductive day into actually a pretty good one. Unfortunately for us we excavated an area that had particularly ugly smoke creek matrix that really did not want to split or break out ......... even with 3 strong guys , multiple pry bars and the diamond rock saw. We probably left 10 good blocks for the next group foolish enough to try to muscle them out. Between Dave and myself, I think we found 3 complete prone eldregeops and 6 or 7 enrolled ones all in matrix. We generally give anything that is not in matrix or 100% to the kids that are always at this fossil park. If you have never been , plan to get there some day, it is worth it and they are all good people that run it. On Monday when we were there they had about 300 grade 6 students on a field trip and we were kept busy handing out goodies to them and answering their question "What is this" As for this greenops under consideration, its not quite as rare as the bellacartwrightia that is up for consideration for the May Fossil of the Month but it is rare enough that I have never found a complete one myself. I have a couple that are like 90% complete. This one although a bit twisted looks to be 98% complete. It is in a quite typical 2/3 enrolled position with the genal spines flying out to the sides. It has some minor damage on the pygidium , the very tip of one of the genal spines is missing and it has 3 broken pygidial spines. I will likely repair all of those defects as this will be a display piece and is unlikely to ever be sold. It was found as just a pygidium (tail) poking through the matrix. They always break in the same place for a molt or incomplete so I would always recommend taking home any greenops pygidium that sneaks under the matrix before the start of the pygidium. Perhaps one in 100 of the pygidium's will continue into something very very nice. You can see here (lol) that this one will be a real beauty ....... not really, just kidding but the best specimens are always pretty much completely buried. At that point I had about 1/2 hour invested in the prep. Here are some pictures at about 3 hours with probably another 3 to go. The eyes on this one are amazing with some pyritization on one of them that makes it real interesting. I will make this somewhat into a flying trilo and will try to preserve the pyritized worm burrow that you can see. Stay tuned for more pictures as I make progress on this bug.

I just spent the past few days digging up some neat Devonian-era fossils from the Penn Dixie Hamburg, New York site and have two Greenops and 10 Eldredgeops that need prepped. Would anyone out there be willing to prepare these fossils for either a fee or for some of the spoils? I have a lot of high quality Eldredgeops, cephalopods, bryozoans, and crinoids that I could give up in exchange for the fossil preparations. I also have a bunch of shark teeth from Calvert Cliffs along with some neat shells (Turitella and Ecphora). Send me a personal message if you're up to the task or respond if you have any referrals.

Found some amazing stuff today with @Kane @ischua @DevonianDigger @Fossildude19 and @drobare We hauled some serious rock and had somewhat of an assembly line going with splitting and processing the pieces. It was a really solid day all around and everyone walked away with some sweet finds. The following is a sample of some of the cool stuff I've found. The rest is packed away. The first is a large cephalon and will look good despite not having a body and then there's a Spyroceras cephalopod that might benefit from some very gentle prep work. I really like cephalopods because of all the neat chambers they contain.

So, I had a Greenops boothi that was missing the the glabella and the entire left portions of the cephalon. @ischua and I dug this fella up at Penn Dixie in the fall. I decided to finally have a go at him to see how much could be salvaged. Here's the before: A little more work: A little more: And, finally: For size:

Just spent the first morning in the new workshop playing with some bugs. Thought I would share day 1 progress. Eldredgeops rana after first prep session. Greenops boothi after some basic prep. Missing the cranidium and left librigena unfortunately. Tiny little Eldredgeops rana, with another little cephalon in association. Thinking this one has the potential to be a nice multi. Usually when I find these tiny little fellas this close together it's a mass mortality.

Hey guys! I took this little fella from the Penn Dixie site a few weeks ago and I had set it aside as a Greenops. But after really looking at it closely, those pygidium look awfully long, they're really not very common here, but I've heard rumors they do exist in the area—is this possibly a Bellacartwrightia? Would make for a super neat addition to my collection if it is!