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I was told these pieces may be uncommon if not rare so I thought I'd share with the Forum. I believe this trilobite is a Tricopelta. I found it just south of Dayton, Ohio where part of a long hill had been taken flattened for a new housing development. It was tucked inside the hollow top of a horn coral. I believe this is a headless Ceraurinus icarus. I found it in the Caesers Creek area in Ohio. It needed very little prep. Feedback is welcome

mikeymig started a thread a few weeks back that got me looking through my collection of bryozoan encrustings (does someone really have such a collection? I have a cabinet drawer devoted to them.) I posted several specimens. Looking further I came across an Ordivician speciman I'd had for several years and had never gotten around to cleaning, so I did. The further along I got the more fired up I got. Upon finishing I knew I had something special. There appears to be 2 different bryozoans on the horn coral. The process that took place for this to occur must have been amazing. [

I extracted this from a large rock over the weekend. Never found anything like it. The site is Ordivician and has a lot of cephalapods, bryozoans, etc. Is it a cephalapod? Or the spike from a horse shoe crab?

Had to clean yesterday's Flexy. Came out really nice. I rarely pick up rocks that have just parts of the trilobite but this one was an uncommon one. This face is nearly twice the size of that of the Flexy pictured above.

I don't usually pick up Bryozoan plates, they're very common and typically all look the same (generalization). But last weekend I was out at a creek north of Cincinnati with the Dry Dredger group when I came across this guy. I'd never seen the color before and the bryozoans had such great detail and "dimensionality"...they weren't "in" the rock they were "on" the rock. Try as I could I was unable to get a picture that really showed this. Both pics are the same plate I was told by one of the club experts in attendance that these type of bryozoans typically means there's trilobites around. In fact several folks found some decent Flexis. (I found a small one and somehow lost it). There are trilo "parts" in the plate.

Got a new camera at Christmas - Canon Powershot. Relatively inexpensive. My sister-in-law is a coral reef scuba diver and recommended it. Takes really nice close ups, my previous one did not, I got a bit carried away, but.... Devonian Phacops #1 found in Northwest Ohio (Sylvania) quarry in May. First mentioned it on FF in June but the pic wasn't good. Devonian Phacops #2 found in Northwest Ohio (Paulding) quarry in August. The front left side of its head is bashed in (cause of death?) which made prep more difficult. Ordivician Flexicalymene #1 found in Southern Ohio (Mt Orab) hillside in June. Ordivician Flexicalymene #2 found in Southwest Ohio (north of Cincinnati) creek in July. Hope I didn't go too overboard.

My husband found this laying in a wash down area of the formation pictured. It was laying on top of the limestone, just as you see it! It is very strange, because we have worked this road cut many times, and have never seen a smooth stone. He found it on the 3 ledge up.

Recently a hill of dirt and rock has been pushed in front of the drive to keep water and washed out materials from gushing down the driveway and into the street. This was the first time in at least several years that this had been done. My first visit to the site produced probably 30 horn corals and brachiopods strewn just across the drive all the way down to the street, pushed there by the flooding caused by rainfall. Obviously, no one had been there in quite a while. The floor of the quarry has become “terraced” due to erosion. The terraces are at most 3 inches tall and may run up to 30-40 ft along the curved contour of the floor. Last month I visited for the 2nd time this year…. with the recent drought followed by several gulley-washer storms within a week’s time I had a feeling a lot of material could have washed out. I was correct. In 3 visits (Th-S-Su) I ended up with 65 lbs of fossils. Around half being brachiopods…. Herbertella, Platystrophia, and Lepidocyclus. (about half of the brachs found) Along with some decent horn corals and cephalopods. Often times a wide range of specimens would be clustered in a small area, such as in the photo below. What all do you see in the photo? Or, there might be a cluster of the same kinds. The brachs in the next pictures, were found clustered in each of their own 1 square foot areas. As if someone set them there. Just sitting right on top of the ground rather than stuck in the rock. At this time I don't intend to visit this site again until next spring, although I may have second thoughts if a huge storm rumbles through in the Fall.

In 2011 a veteran rockhound (no longer in shape to go on field trips) in the Dayton Gem and Mineral club mentioned this no-name Ordivician site where he’d had a lot of success in the past finding fossils. I’ve visited the site about 5-6 times now and have never been disappointed. It has a constant erosion of horn corals, brachiopods, cephalopods, bryozoans. As I heard it, at least 20 years ago an entrepreneur bought a hill/hillside plot of land just within the Dayton, OH city limits, less than 2 miles east of downtown. Just on the edge of a commercial business area. (looking west) (looking north from the driveway) He immediately turned into a small limestone quarry. Within 10 years he ended his business and the quarry has seen little or no activity except for an occasional illegal dumping. The “Y” shaped quarry is entered by walking up an eroded blacktop driveway. The East “wall” is about 150 yards away, the Southeast “wall” about 75 yards, and the South “wall” about 175 yards. An apartment complex can be found within 50 yards beyond the SE and S “walls”. The far “walls’” base being maybe 8-10 feet higher than where the drive meets the quarry floor. The West side of the quarry is lined with trees sitting atop a 3-6 ft tall hill. The old business district begins just on the other side of the hill. To be continued....