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I finally managed to get my cheapo air abrader working today so I want to show off my first self-prepared trilo. Eldredgeops rana found a few weeks ago at penn dixie fossil park in NY Before starting only the right eye and a few segments were exposed (forgot to take a pic before starting...) so I assumed it was a roller of some sort like most of the others I've found. The exposed section also had compression damage so it seemed like good practice material. Luckily I didn't destroy it because aside from the compression it turned out to be a very well preserved prone! The air abrasion was done using a paasche air eraser at 50 psi with dolomite. Everything so far was done without magnification so I need to finish off the eyes and some of the deeper crevices under a scope.

It was a pretty good week fossil collecting I managed to make it to Penn Dixie Tuesday and Friday. A few of us Canadians had the place to ourselves both days Tuesday was an interesting day, three of us went Mike, Greg and myself and we all ended up with heat stroke. The temperature topped out at 39 Celsius and then you add in the humidity factor and it was low 40's. Stupid weather for collecting but we all found some very good stuff. Greg found a huge plate that I cut down in the field for him to about 12 inches by 12 inches. It would appear to have 4 complete prone E. rana on it . It currently sits in my basement waiting to be prepped. I do not have a picture as of yet but if I get his permission I will post one. Mike as usual is the greenops whisperer and he found 2 or 3 relatively complete and large greenops at the top of the blocks in the main Penn trilobite layer. I was having a reasonable day I probably had 20 to 30 enrolled or partially enrolled trilobites in the bucket along with a very nice Pleurodictyum americanum (a tabulate coral) . I only find a few of these each year at Penn and always take them home because they prep up quite nicely. I was getting a bit frustrated that both Mike and Greg were finding prone rana's including Greg's spectacular plate, when my fortunes changed with one split of the rock. For those of you that have been collecting with me you know that my style is to spend the morning breaking out huge blocks from the main trilobite layer with big prybars, wedges and chisels and then I split for the whole afternoon. We were working a large bench and had gotten to the state where all the blocks were locked in because of convoluted dome structures and the lack of natural cracks. The blocks that day were coming out about 200 to 300 pounds and about 12 to 18 inches thick. Eventually I would resort to the diamond gas saw and create some weak areas that we could exploit, but back to this story. In frustration with the heat and three guys not being able to get the next block out I just took a chisel and a 5 pound mini sledge and took my frustration out on the rock. Well to my pleasant surprise off popped a piece of matrix that clearly had 2 nice bugs in it. Wow one strike of the sledge and the fortunes of the day are totally changed. I always tell people who are collecting with me to keep at it, your are only one strike of the hammer away from having an amazing day. Unfortunately I did not take any pictures in the field my phone would not let me it said the battery was over heated. Here is ta picture of the shard about 1/2 hour into prepping. What you cant notice in this picture is that there is a 3rd bug buried to the left, I was just able to see the edge of a pygidium from the side. For once I got lucky and it was not just an isolated pygidium. Here it is probably an hour into the prep Prep was pretty standard using a COMCO air abrasion unit at about 30 PSI with 40 micron previously used dolomite, utilizing .025. .015 and .010 tips. Very little scribing was used on the piece because was quite thin and looked to have weak spots that were stabilized with cyanoacrylate and dilute vinac in acetone .Anyway for your viewing pleasure here is a series of pictures of the completed bugs. The plate has no repairs or restoration and the bugs are lying in their original positions. Going into my collection besides the "Perfect Bug" I found earlier this season.

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

It is very rare that a crinoid calyx is found a Penn Dixie. I was at Penn Yesterday in the blistering heat 39 Celsius and found a small calyx (23mm * 11 mm). I have a suspicion what this is but don't want to taint others before hearing their opinion. This was found in the top of the E. rana trilobite layer in the Windom shale. I prepped it this morning and the preservation is much better than the 1 other calyx that I have ever found there which I gave to DevonianDigger earlier this year. Here are a series of pictures that try to give the different views. There is the remains of one arm but it is disarticulated from the actual calyx.

Here's another fossil from Penn Dixie I'm having trouble with. It's from the Devonian shale, and it can be hard to see in the photo as it blends in really well and is a bit worn. There is a trilobite in the upper part of the photo, I've circled the interesting feature in red. It's a circular shape with ribbed features radiating from the center. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure if it's actually a fossil or just an anomaly in the rock.

A visitor brought this item up front and I'm pulling the room to see if anyone has a definite ID on this piece. It's almost like coal, definitely seems like a carbonized something. Doesn't have the calcite to indicate plant, perhaps a fish coprolite? Thanks in advance.

Hello there! I visited @Malcolmt yesterday and he was nice enough to clean up some of my stuff from Penn Dixie (mid-Devonian), including the specimen below. I'm not exactly sure what it is, so I was hoping that someone out there will be able to help me with identifying this little guy, which I think is either a gastropod or a ammonoid - what do you think? These are all pictures of the same specimen, just from different angles. And it's pretty small - only 5mm across at its widest point. Maybe @DevonianDigger can help? Thanks for your help! Monica PS - We found a definite gastropod - a Platyceras of some sort - just barely exposed on the side of one rock, but it's kind of twisted and weird-looking, so Malcolm is going to work on it a bit more - after it's done, I'll post pictures of that little guy, too.

Hello TFF! It’s been a long time since I’ve been on the forums so I thought I’d update on my first fossil hunt of the year. I’ve been really busy with College and there’s nowhere to fossil hunt where I go to school. On the 26th of May I went with the North Coast Fossil Club (a club that I am part of and who do meetings and trips in and around Ohio and surrounding states) to the Penn Dixie Paleontological Site in Hamburg, New York. This was my third time at Penn Dixie, and just like last time I did excellent when it came to my finds. I hoped into the car of a friend of mine named Donna from the club along with two others from the club, and we drove eastward towards New York. In Ohio that was cloudy, hot, and very humid. The drive was 3 1/2 hours but that didn’t seem like much because I talked to the crew the entire time. When we arrived in New York and got to Penn Dixie we were blessed with the perfect weather of mid 70s with cloud cover which kept the temperature down significantly, along with a beautiful breeze that must of came from Lake Erie. There weren’t a lot of people because the legendary “day at the dig” had occurred a week ago so the rush for the new broken up shale was gone. Thankfully, all the good finds weren’t. For about an hour I sat down in the piles of rubble from the previous weeks new stuff from the nearby quarry. I split rocks with little avail until I hit my first find. A complete Eldregeops trilobite. However when I split the rock I broke off his pydigum. I rushed to my friend Donna and she lent me some glue with which I did a poor job at gluing his tail back on. It worked and while it looks amateur I’m happy to say he’s a full bug, and a big one at that.

Hello everyone! This past Sunday, while I was at the "Dig with the Experts" event at Penn Dixie in Hamburg, NY, I found something a little different from my usual finds. I think it's a gastropod, but I'm not at all sure, so I was hoping for your input. The specimen is about 5mm in diameter, and you can see it in the eight pictures below - thanks in advance for your help! Oh, and the age is mid-Devonian. Monica @DevonianDigger - are these pictures more helpful? Thanks again!

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..

Hello, fellow TFF-ers! With the permission of our moderators—and provided I follow a few rules and guidelines—I am pleased to offer up a drawing exclusively for the members of TFF. On behalf of Penn Dixie Fossil Park and Nature Reserve, we are collecting names and e-mails for people interested in joining the Penn Dixie e-mail newsletter. This info may be sent via personal message to me—all submissions will be governed by the Penn Dixie privacy policy, (which can be viewed HERE), and will be used exclusively and solely for the purpose of the e-mail newsletter. On May 1st, we will be drawing randomly from the submitted names and giving away five copies of Amadeus Grabau's Geology and Palaentology of Eighteen Mile Creek as reprinted by the Hamburg Natural History Society. Amazon Reviewer Thomas Buckley writes: “This book has excellent descriptions and images of all the fossil fauna you are likely to encounter at Eighteen Mile Creek, the Shore of Lake Erie, and the Penn-Dixie quarry…In addition to being excellent visually, it is also an easy read. Grabau writes in a more modern prose, not in the vernacular of the late 19th century. If you are collecting in these formations, having this book is a necessity. You will not be disappointed. Especially for the price.” Details about the book can be found HERE. The selected winners will be posted on this thread on May 1st, at which point I will only ask for mailing addresses for the purpose of shipping out your new book! Thanks, and best of luck! -Jay Wollin Lead Educator Penn Dixie Fossil Park and Nature Reserve

I had been looking forward to a multi-day, multi-site trip since even before the semester ended. There's nothing like breaking rock to relieve the stress of grading papers. Deb and I made the drive down to Penn Dixie to meet up with Jay (DevonianDigger), Malcolm, Greg, and James. As we arrived at the Peace Bridge at around 11 am, we were delayed by construction on the bridge, a long lineup at the border, and a less than courteous border guard. And then construction in Buffalo with all its confusing signage meant taking detours upon detours. But eventually we made it by a little after 12:20. As Malcom alluded to in another thread, hardly any of us thought to take any pictures on the Friday as we were just too busy breaking rock. Jay had the excavator on site to test out some new areas on the site where we could dig into some fresh material, leaving the material for the Dig with the Experts alone. The site is vastly changed since last season, and it looks like it will be a productive one for those who go. I am still in the process of going through field finds, but I can at least for now share some pictures of the process and method when we crazy canucks come down to PD. Deb has snapped a picture of us at work in the newly excavated area. From left to right: James, Greg, Jay, and me. Malcolm is represented on the far left by his dolly that carries his trademark rock saw.

Well I was fortunate to have the opportunity to collect with my fossil friend DevonianDigger and two others last week at Penn Dixie for a few hours. We probably moved about a ton of rock and who knows how much overburden. Jay was kind enough to share what he thought might be a promising spot even though he could only stay with us till noon. We pretty much had the site to ourselves so I was able to use the saw which helped us a lot in freeing out large blocks from the trilobite bearing layer. We got quite muddy as the water level at the site was fairly high. We in fact spent some time creating a drainage ditch to clear out the water from where we were digging. Between us we probably took out 60 potentially complete eldredgeops and perhaps 4 or 5 greenops and this little guy that I started to prep this morning. I knew this one had damage as the bug was in both the positive and the negative of the split. I was pretty sure in the field that it was not a greenops. I also have two presumed greenops I also found that are currently in glue up waiting prep. The prep starts out by reuniting the top and the bottom halves of the bug with cyanoacrylate glue that is clamped for 24 hours. Resist the urge to prep right away the glue bonds better if you let it cure 24 hours. Here is the first picture that I took just as the top of the eye is becoming exposed. Notice how I cut out the top piece and joined it to the bottom piece. You want to leave as little matrix on the top section as you can get away with because you do have to take it all of during the prep process. Here we are a little bit further. There is minimal scribe work being done it is all being done with 40 micron dolomite and a .015 COMCO nozzle on a COMCO MB1000 air abrasion unit at about 30 PSI. If I were to do much if any scribe work I would risk vibrating the glue bond loose and it would never glue back properly a 2nd time. Your first attempt at a join is always the best. Unfortunately I can already tell that there is some skin missing on the cephalon and that one of the genal spines is not there. After a bit more work So is it a greenops or a belacartwrightia More to come as the prep continues not counting gluing time we have about an hour invested in this bug. It is not a flawless bug by any means but is likely to be my first confirmed bela from Penn Dixie... I have prepped a couple of Bela's from there including a Fossil of the month here on the Forum ... but alas they were not mine......

Been a while since I posted any prep projects. These were two that I finished up the other day. Taking advantage of a nice 45 degree day before it got cold again! Both are Eldregeops from Penn Dixie, prepped with an Aro scribe and air abrasive unit.

I wanted to enter this one into the IVFOM, but I technically collected it the last day of March, and I didn't take a picture of it before I started prepping it, so that's out. But I will try to chronicle the prep on here. It’s a decent-sized Bellacartwrightia whiteleyi that I pulled from the Windom shale just above the Bay View Coral bed at the site.

UPDATE: Thanks to the help of @Fossildude19, @Al Dente and @abyssunder, (plus others), I'm currently listing this as a Buchiola sp., a bivalve from the upper Hamilton. This little fella is about 8mm across. I have yet to find another example at the site. It was found in the pyrite beds, so it's a float from somewhere, but I couldn't tell you where. It's from Penn Dixie, it's Middle Devonian, Hamilton Fm. That's what I know. Absolutely beautiful little piece. But I have no idea what it is.

Hello, all! So I am cleaning out my workshop to make room for a lot of new material coming in and to prepare for the upcoming season. I have wayyyyyy too much Penn Dixie material. I have, at this point, committed all of my complete bugs away. But I still have quite literally, TONS, of other material. What I am offering is Edlredgeops rana partials, this includes entire prepped bugs that are missing cephalons, stand alone cephalons, pygidiums, large but broken cephalons, half bugs, etc. (Please note, I am not offering any of these as complete. There is the real chance that some of the unprepped material COULD be complete, but I am not offering them as such. I also have Greenops pygidiums and partials, beat up examples with broken cephalons, etc. I also have a few Bellacartwrightia pygidiums laying around, and perhaps a few broken and partials of them as well. I also have massive quantities of hash plates from the Bay View coral layer, brachipods (Mucrospirifer, Pseudoatrypa, Rhipidomella, Spinatrypa), Spyroceras cephalopod partials, rugose and tablulate corals, clams, and other random bits. I am interested in trading for similar material from other locales. I am not expecting anyone to offer up prime specimens for any of this material, but I would love anyone else's throw-aways that include vertebrate material, plants, small fish, and the like. I am also considering minerals and gems. (Again, throw-aways are all I'm looking for, quantity beats quality on this one.) I will cover shipping domestically in the US, but can't really afford to ship out a ton of international packages this month. (I will still do international, we just might have to work something out.) If anyone is interested, please message me! I want this stuff gone as quickly as possible, it's getting to the point where I can't walk in my workshop anymore! If you let me know what you're interested in I will take photos of some examples, but it would take me a full weekend at least to photograph everything that I have available. This is perfect for anyone wanting to practice prepping as the Windom shale that most of these bits are in is relatively easy to work and there are lots of attractive pieces that will look very nice prepped, just aren't worth the time and effort for me at this point. Cheers!

Last summer my wife's side of the family held a reunion in Buffalo, NY. I had heard of a fossil park in the area and suggested that any family members that would like to go with me to the park on our afternoon with no obligations could join me. Five carloads later, we ended up at Penn Dixie in the misty rain. Our guide, no other than Devonian Digger provided us with an exceptional afternoon of fun. From 5 year olds to 80 year olds, each came home with a bucket of fossils! This is definitely a family experience for anyone in the area. One I recommend highly!!!!! I must apologize to Devonian Digger. My intent was to post this months and months ago. But our computer crashed and I lost all of the family pictures showing utter joy on their faces. Still have not been able to retrieve them. So you will just have to look at fossils

All I can say to this fine specimen is "Wow!" @Malcolmt thank you so much for restoring and preparing this prone Eldredgeops rana. Here is a before and after.

Well as of late I don't seem to be prepping many for me, although I have had some stunning fossils pass by my workshop in the last few months I know these are common as dirt. I found this little gem (dimension 27.17 mm x 17.26 mm) on Monday May 22 at Penn Dixie. So I took time this morning while working on a stunning greenops for someone else to quickly have a go at this little beauty for myself. I will post something on the greenops prep in a bit. It is going to be a nice one. A trilobite does not have to be rare to be beautiful. As far as I can recall the phacops rana ( I know that is not the correct name but it probably was when I found my first one) was the first complete trilobite I ever found, so they will always have a special place for me. The mind gets fuzzy with old age as the senility begins to creep in. This one was from Penn Dixie and took a whopping 12 minutes to prep. Other than the tip of the cephalon (head) everything was buried. Buried trilos always have the best potential to be pristine. Came out pretty nice for a quickie. Was prepped on a Comco air abrasion unit with no airscribing, using 40 micron dolomite at 25 PSI with a .030 and .015 inch nozzle under a Olympus scope at 10x magnification. No restoration, no gluing, no coatings.

Hello, I see all the great trilobite preps that people have done on specimens found at Penn Dixie and I was just wondering whether anyone puts the same amount of effort on any of the brachiopods or corals (or other things for that matter) that come out of that site. Specifically, I am curious whether you can use the same air abrasion techniques or if the fossil left behind from these brachiopods and corals is not as dense as the trilobites and therefore just gets destroyed by the use of air abrasion. If anyone has used a similar technique on brachiopods or corals I would be interested in hearing these sucess stories and seeing some of the finished products. I have been using manual tools (picks, needles, etc.) thus far with decent results but always looking to up my game. Thanks, Microtooth

I'm really getting into preparation as of late, courtesy of having some of the right tools on hand. But as I am still a novice at it, I have been practicing on easier specimens. I thought I'd share my progress - and a wee bit of pride. When it comes to easier prep jobs, Penn Dixie Eldredgeops rana can be fairly forgiving for the beginner. The first picture is of how the roller (on the right) appeared once I freed it from the matrix. It's a might bit dusty and caked in matrix.

Deb and I came back from three half-days at the Penn Dixie site with an ok mix of finds despite some weather and site challenges. This is usually an ideal time for us to get out and collect as Monday was our Thanksgiving, and my university has implemented a new Fall Reading Break. However, not everything went according to plan! This trip report will mostly be in situ pictures (when we had time to take them, or it was not too rainy to risk it), and a few preliminary shots of what was found. So, story mode first... Day 1 We arrived around 1 pm and left before sunset. The site itself is vastly different from when we were on the big TFF dig back in April. After the Digging with the Experts, a lot of overburden seemed to have been dumped on areas we had been working. About 5 or more feet of the stuff, actually. Usually one will find a spot where a bench has been started, and that becomes the starting point for expansion. Not so much this time around as it more meant starting a bench from scratch at the right spot where the trilobite layer is. I found an entry point about a foot and half wide and we got to work moving about a foot or more of overburden. I then starting carving out slabs and placing them on the piles of debris we were scooping up (I'm glad I did as Day 2 will make clear). There was a slightly higher proportion of Greenops bits at this spot as I suspected from the general area we had covered last year. Pictured here are some slabs. The first one with my rock hammer dangling was resting on a very smooth inclined layer that ran about 4-5 feet wide and about 3 feet deep. The bottom half of that slab is about a foot and the top tapered part is only about a few inches. The one I pulled out the next day was a real monster at about 2.5x larger and about 400 lbs, and it took a heck of a lot of energy and several tries to wrestle it into an upright position. My back was pretty sore after that! The other slab pictured has some promise as there are some trilobite parts showing. Ultimately, I was in search of a trilobite party, and the stuff at the base of the inclined layer seemed to hold a bit of promise for a multi-plate. (cont)