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Showing results for tags 'odontopleura markhami'.
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G'day TFF, I thought i'd share with you all the results of my recent trilobite hunting trip in country NSW, Australia. This is only the second time i have been able to collect trilobites and i am very pleased with the results! My family and i went out to a spot near Forbes that is part of the Silurian-aged Cotton Formation. The rocks are marine and date back about 435 million years old! It's crazy to think that at the time these animals were alive in the sea, there was very little life yet on land at all! The most common find here is the trilobite Odontopleura markhami, but you can also find graptolites and rare brachiopods and gastropods. We got to the site around about 11 am and quickly started splitting as many rocks as we could looking for the trilobites, and after being there for only about a minute i managed to split a beautiful near-complete Odontopleura markhami with both the positive and negative sides. It was only about the second or third rock i cracked open too! For the next few hours my family and i continued to whack away at the rocks and we managed to find at least 5 other complete trilobites during that time, in addition to lots and lots of disarticulated body parts (isolated heads, tails, sections of thorax etc). Mum and i got the best examples, but it really does tend to come down to luck (and persistence)! It was a great little trip and the specimens below are already proudly displayed in one of my bedroom glass cabinets. Now for the pictures! The Location: The Days Best Finds (complete or near-complete trilobites only) First of all i thought i'd include a picture of what the seafloor might have looked like in this part of Australia 435 million years ago. This was the Odontopleura markhami i found barely a minute after arriving at the site! My other favourite example that i found I love this Odontopleura markhami that mum found! The detail of the spines is amazing! Other great examples. All are again Odontopleura markhami. Thanks for checking this report out and happy hunting to all! Cheers, Nathan
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- australian trilobites
- cotton formation
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