Search the Community

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.

1-1/2" (3.81 cm) long. Head/tail areas still seem buried in matrix. Caught my eye as it looks nothing like the Margaretia dorus algea there. Thanks for any help!

I collected this at Marjum Pass in the House Range. The beds are likely Wheeler Shale but almost certainly middle Cambrian. Trace fossil or scour mark? The ruler is marked in centimeters, so an individual grove is about a centimeter long.

Eldonia sp. Part and counterpart from the House Range in Utah, the pride and joy of my collection. Just look at that beautiful circular gut!

I recently purchased a 40lb box of shale from U-Dig Fossils in Utah. Mid-Cambrian, Wheeler Shale Formation, House Range, Millard County, Utah. This morning after work, I split a smallish piece & one side had an odd dent, the other had an indistinct, slightly raised shape that sort of looked like a trilobite, so I started trying to find out if it was. This was the result. Using dental picks, a needle in a small pin vice, a # 428 Dremel wire brush (by hand) & another small, round nylon brush (Dremel) in another pic vice... and lots of patience. I think it's most of an Elrathia Kingii minus the cheeks (of course) measuring 1.5 cm in length. It isn't the cleanest & I have a bit more to do, but I wanted to "show it off" as it were. And see if I got the I.D right. Not the greatest quality pic, but I've also been up for almost 24 hours, so it may just be my imagination (pic quality or that I actually took a pic).

Hey everyone, I just got back from an amazing trip to Utah and Nevada collecting a host of trilobites. I am going to try and post some photos of that trip in the next day or so. I never seem to be able to find the time anymore! This find was pretty much the trip maker for non trilobite finds. I found this soft tissue arthropod in the house range in rocks known to have Burgess Shale fauna. So far this doesn’t seem to line up with anything I’ve seen in the Burgess. I’ve had 2 suggestions on an identification. Canadaspis perfecta is the best guess so far however there are glaring differences. The similarities to Canadaspis would have me thinking this could still be related (family or genus level?) as it shares the same body plan but with different proportions. The other suggestion was Eldonia but I’m far more skeptical of that. to me this is clearly some type of arthropod with a distinct head, carapace, body segments and legs. If it has a name I don’t seem to have the reach in my research tools to figure it out. The gut tract is also preserved in this specimen too. This has been confirmed by reputable sources so that also makes this even more wild of a specimen. If this turns out to be something unknown to science that would sure be a surprise....we seem to have slapped names on almost everything at this point lol. here is a photo of the slightly more detailed side. Here is a little diagram showing anatomy. searching desperately for my scale bar (eye roll emoji lol).....one I find a good scale I’ll put up another photograph. It’s only about an inch or prolly 3-4cm tip to tip in a straight line not measuring the curve of the animal. If anyone with Burgess Shale knowledge or some deep pocket knowledge on Cambrian arthropods want take a guess, let me know what you think! Al

Well, I'm headed up and ready to go. Been planning this trip for five months! obviously nothing to report yet, but I'm hoping a little pre-game Q and A with you guys might help me raise the safety factor. I'm traveling solo and I have never been to Millard county. No worries though, as desert camping and travel goes, this is an easy one for me. Three weeks in the Atacama on foot was far riskier! Death Valley, the Mojave, and Baja aren't too tough. Anyway: I've been scouting the works of Smith, Wilson, and about twenty other geologists and paleontologists to try my hand at places like Cowboy Pass, Camp Canyon, the red coral of the Foote range and Marjum pass in addition to the "tourist" sites like Fossil mountain in The Barn, reliable U-Dig, Fossil Butte and the fish quarries and my childhood dream, Dinosaur National Monument. ( I blame you all for everything but UDig and Dinosaur....first heard of those other spots on here or on members sites) Right now, I'm worried about road conditions in Millard county. Very hard to find recent reports and it looks like the weather was wet and floody. I plan to BLM camp for the entire trip of only for the quiet and some armchair astronomy. I don't use GPS or Internet maps, just topos, a recent road atlas, and my trusty Brunton transit. Any safety/weather/driving tips I should know before I get there?

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.

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.

In case the label is a little hard to read: 11x7 mm, 22 segments, collected in North Valley, House Range, Weeks formation. I'm not at all sure what this species is. Any help would be much appreciated. I'm thinking it is a Modocia, but could easily be wrong. It is from the buff layers, but I did not collect it in the quarry, but up on the hill side. Not that that probably matters too much. Thanks, Tim

Utah Trip Report I spend a good portion of October collecting trilobites in Utah. My first stop was in the Wasatach-Cache National Forest. I drove into Hardware Ranch (Rt 101). Just before the Ranch boundary I checked and found a few bits in the rocks. Driving back west I went up the left fork of the Blacksmith River. Again bits and pieces, but not much to talk about. So, after a night at a good campsite I drove out to the western ranges. First stop was the Drums. The road is rough but doable. I collected for the day, bagging up about 15 from the lower Wheeler. Every time I camp here the wind comes up hard during the night. Third time this has happen to me in the Drums. I pulled out in the middle of the night, headed for Swazey Springs, but I had a hard time navigating in the dark and pulled off the road to sleep in the car. After watching a beautiful sunrise I drove on to the first good road junction. I was right about where I thought I was, but stopping was the right decision. This is not an area to get lost in. By late morning I was up on the slopes above the spring (good water here). I collected about 20 bugs, mostly Peronopsis and Ptychagnostus, but a half dozen nonagnostid small bugs, about 1 inch. I hope one or two might be Jenkinsonia varga, but it is more likely they are Bolaspidella. They have a hard layer of wheeler shale over them like a shield, so it is hard to be sure till I get them cleaned. Of course I got a few Eltharia and one Gogia! The night was windy again so I headed over to Amasa or North Canyon, and the Weeks formation. There is a good, well protected, camp site there above the quarries. I camped here nine nights, using the area as a base camp. Water was available about a mile below U-Dig, just to the left (or west) of the main road. I spend a few days walking the hills of the Weeks formation. I collected about 10 bugs in the cream beds and about 20 in the red! Best I have ever done in the red beds. The quarries are pretty worked over, I walked up the hills and found several spots to break rock. I went to the Wheeler Amphitheater, coming in from the west edge, till I was just north of the old airstrip. Mostly I collected Peronopsis interstricta here. Then I drove over the what I call the Big Trench. This was dug about 10 years ago and the shale is breaking down pretty bad. I collected several Ptychagnostus atavius. In the past I have collected several good Bolaspidella here. I believe this is lower wheeler, in fact I think the trenches go right down to the Swazey limestone. (Does anyone know why this area was dug? Or the proper name?) I did a little work in the Marjum, and visited the Red Beds. I walked up to the Chisholm, but didn't find too much. I hiked up below Notch Peak, by Painter Spring, but the intrusions cooked the limestone too much, didn't find any fossils, but there are some interesting minerals! And the narrow little canyon was a beautiful hike. On the way south I stopped in the Wah Wah Range, collecting in the Filmore. I have not finished cleaning these yet, they are still in the vinegar bath, but I don't expect much except bits and pieces. I will post pictures of trilobites when I have a good selection cleaned up. Is there any interest in seeing pictures of what I collected before cleaning?

Looking toward the mountain we hunted, a wild horse watched us Looking down the 20 mile dirt road After a fossil fish hunt in Wyoming, we drove to House Range, Utah to hunt Trilobites at the U-Dig quarry. The formation is Wheeler Shale, 500+ MYA. The drive between the quarries was about 6 hours. Well worth it! The final 20 miles is a dirt road through the desert. We rented a 4x4 truck as we were told we shouldn't attempt the drive down that road after a rainy day. As luck would have it, we didn't get into rain & the road was well graded. (continued next post)