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Finished up the 2nd Pulalius of my career. Overall I am pleased with it, but I have had to endure the great disappointment of having the claws cave in on me. On the left, just part of the claw broke off; hardly noticeable. On the right the whole propodus crumbled, a great tragedy considering how beautiful it was...you could see all the little nodules on it. Perhaps I have to reevaluate my desire to expose the whole front side of the claw...the fact they are so small and hollow tells me I may end up with this result over and over again if I keep being greedy.

I believe I found some trace worm burrows in clay… Lincoln Creek Formation in WA. unfortunately the dried clay makes it very unstable, some of the burrows are filled in with harder matrix. I’m not sure what to do… any advice would be great!

Picked up a few more shells from the Lincoln Creek Formation while out on a walk, and thought it would be fun to make a composite piece with them. Was pretty easy, just used superglue to fix a couple of moon snails and a scaphopod to a tiny slab of shale from the formation. For my first composite piece I don't think it looks bad, but I was obviously a little too excessive with the glue.

Dear Friends! My apologies for staying away for many years. Things change, life evolves. Quick update: yes, I'm still alive, built a new house, nearly gave up on fossil hunts because of the restrictions. But! you can't keep someone's passion, especially fossil folks (we're stubborn like that) under lock and key forever. Met several new friends, started taking longer hikes deeper into the field, hills and canyons. Studied and researched the geology of my region and drank lots of coffee. With the help of some friends, I started understanding the history better. The results have been rewarding. I found a new fossil that's being described as we speak and when published, will share with you. Here's my latest find, unprepped, an isopod. Only took 32 years to find one! I will try to make more posts as new things come about. Fossil on!

I've been planning a fossil hunting outing with my son for the next week or two (weather permitting), and yesterday my wife kindly suggested that I scout out the site before I take our 8 year old on a fossil hunting trip deep into the woods where no cell phones reach. So, when today turned out to be mostly sunny and pleasant, I hopped in the car and headed to a location that sounded promising on old geologic maps/reports (by Rau in the 1950s-60s, to be precise). And it turns out that (as always) my wife was correct -- the logging company who owns the land has apparently erected a gate blocking vehicle access to the road I was planning to use to get to the site, which was not on any topo maps including the relatively recent FS Topo that encompasses this area. Their sign said it was fine to hike in as long as I didn't remove any "special forestry products." Pretty sure fossils don't qualify! I was originally planning to start with what Rau called "Tl-3," one of the lower (geologically) members of the formation, but in light of having to hike instead of drive, I opted for a closer member, Tl-5. After a short walk on the road, I struck out for the stream I was targeting through the woods. This is the part where I'm pretty sure my son would not be capable of pushing through the underbrush on steep and soggy stream banks, so I'll have to find another site for next time, preferably within easy walking distance of a logging road I'm allowed to drive on. When I reached the first exposure of the formation, I could see clear evidence that I wasn't the first person to visit this site (no surprise there), in the form of piles of debris at the base of the bank and a few clear empty spherical gaps in the outcrop. But, I had no trouble finding many small concretions (shells or nothing, I assume?), one large misshapen one (maybe not even a proper concretion?), and one nice looking one that I assume contains a crab, so I suspect no one had been there since the most recent tree-falls and rockslides. I scrambled up, down and along the bank for about 45 minutes, collecting any concretions or fossils I saw either exposed or lose, but did not attempt to expose anything new (maybe next time!). I found a very nice piece of fossilized wood in the debris pile, too, which I can only assume previous visitors to the site mistook for ordinary wood. I am tired and dirty and need to do some household chores, so I will save the whacking of concretions for another day, and probably not do the (likely) crab at all until I have the proper tools to prepare it right. First I'll attach the complete collection of finds, then add a few closeups of the wood in the thread below.

I took my 8 year old on a concretion hunting expedition to the Lincoln Creek formation over the weekend, and we didn't find anything too great, mostly they contained this reddish brown crystalline mineral in various unidentifiable shapes. My son says he thinks this one is a fish, and I told him I didn't see it, but he said I should "ask the internet" because I "don't know everything," so I'm asking away! Any thoughts on what the mineral is that's inside these? It doesn't appear to be iron-based since it weathers pale, not rusty, as shown by the second photo. I forgot to include something for scale, but the rectangular faces of the broken concretion (left side of photo) measure about 5cm x 4cm.

I've been busy whacking concretions today (ok not so much whacking as gently knocking around and around until they give way), and this is the first one where it contained something that I suspect can be identified. Anyone know what bivalve this is? It's from the middle of the formation, so I think that means Lower Zemorrian? At least that's what it was called in the 1960s when the relevant report was published, I dunno if it's been standardized to some other designation since then. The shell measures 3cm across.