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It'd been awhile since I last joined the Austin Paleo group for one of their field trips, so I was excited to finally catch back up with them at some sites about 3 hrs up north. The plan for the day was to hit up Brady and Santa Anna, but the weather forecast had put things into question. Originally, I had some rather ambitious sites lined up in the Llano Uplift afterwards. The rainy conditions, however, meant the river would be a little too high for walking. After a peaceful morning drive under the guiding light of the full moon, I pulled up to the first location where I was relieved to see things weren't canceled, and Melvin plus the gang were already crawling along the slick exposure of Strawn Group shales (Desmoinesian Series). Upon stepping out of the car, I was suddenly met with a confusing mix of cold drizzly rain and warm gusts of humid wind. It wasn't unbearable though, and I was more so focused on catching up with some familiar faces anyways. The hunting proved a bit treacherous. The ground shimmered with newly formed mud mounds that loved to stick under your shoes. Although it wasn't nearly as bad as wet Grayson/Del Rio matrix (Waco Pit), it was still a strenuous activity, having to climb the hillside in my new platform shoes. Things started off a bit slow. The weather dampened the mood, but with enough effort, people started making some decent finds. I was hopeful to prove my crinoid crown from last year was no fluke, so I went straight to business, closely inspecting every rock for anything out of place. It was a challenge to look for details through the mud. Nevertheless, it was a rich site and everyone kinda knew the spectacular finds would roll out one way or another. After an hour and a half of looking at hash plates and broken brachiopods, I found the first keeper. Especially since it was covered in mud, this guy was tough one to notice. I think 9 times out of 10 I would have walked over it. A small, smashed crinoid crown and arms Nearby I also picked up a small crinoid cup which are always fun to find. As we were wrapping up, I took a gamble wiggling out a mucky mass of what looking like a crinoid arm erupting just from underneath a bigger rock. It didn't take long to figure out it was most definitely a large crinoid crown. The species is hard for me to say, so I am open for suggestion. A large crinoid that took a bit of cleaning. The other side shows some arms, but there is a lot more matrix covering it. With all the rain, Melvin and Ed decided it was wise to skip what would have been a messy parking situation at Santa Anna in favor of an impromptu trip to the beloved Wilson Clay Pit of the Harpersville Fm (Virgilian Series). After about an hour of caravaning northbound, everyone gingerly parked their cars along the gravel margin. It took a bit of teamwork to set up some big rocks for a makeshift bridge across the mote separating us from the gate, but we pulled through. Others gave up a bit too early and decided wet feet for the rest of the day would not dissuade them from taking the shortest route across the puddle . Wilson was a good call as things were surprisingly easy to traverse once inside the quarry. All the rock fragments made for good footing. I had made a couple new friends who happened to be fossil forum lurkers. One of them was named Will, and I decided to help him out with finding some Pennsylvanian shark teeth. Once we located the right rocks, I tried to show him what to keep an eye out for. He was a fast learner and pretty soon we were both consistently spotting little pieces of Petalodus among other cartilaginous vertebrates. Sadly, I didn't find most of my cooler stuff until he was sick of all the hammering and ventured elsewhere to find inverts! The first keeper for me was a mess of associated Archaeocidaris plates and spines. Not nearly as pretty as those of the Brownwood Spillway, but still neat nonetheless. Archaeocidarid plates and spines Not long after, I made a rather unexpected discovery. I guess in the past I wasn't looking at each rock close enough. I had heard of Cladodont sharks being found in Wilson before, but never saw one myself. Over the course of the day, however, I found like 6 of them in varying condition. They are surprisingly common, but go unnoticed because they are usually so tiny. I have seen the species Symmorium reniforeme referenced in Wilson, but I am under the impression that these teeth are now classified as Glikmanius occidentalis. My favorite is the middle one below. Its white coloration makes it almost look like a modern shark tooth on the beach. Cladodont (Glikmanius occidentalis?) shark teeth. Surprisingly common in smaller sizes. "Deltodus" was the second most common shark of the day and I managed to snag one in near perfect condition. "Deltodus" Throughout the day I was really hoping to find a Petalodus as good as the one from last year, but alas it was not meant to be. Still, there were some decent ones that showed themselves now and again. One tooth has some really cool dendritic mineralization on the enamel. Best Petalodus ohioensis of the day. As I was writing the above excerpt on the dendritic Petalodus, I took a second look at it and just noticed a trilobutt on the back of the broken root! First Wilson trilo for me and it's on a Petalodus tooth go figure. I guess there's no other way I'd find one given my vertebrate fixations Trilobutt on Petalodus! It was about sunset when I left. Of course I was one of the last ones there along with Ed and Melvin. I need to work on my controlling my fossil hunting urges for sure. Anyways, it was a nice day for a hunt and definitely something I needed. The 3 hour drive back felt like nothing as all I could think about was what awaited me the next trip out. Thanks for reading!

Yesterday, I embarked on my second journey with the Austin Paleo Society to a famous spot: The Wilson Clay Pit. It's the site of a former clay quarry that was used for the production of bricks. Though it is in private hands, the land owners are very kind and allow fossil hunters to collect a diverse range of Pennsylvanian fossils on their property. One of prize finds from the pit is the highly-coveted Petalodus tooth. Some of y'all may remember me wishing to find one on my last trip to the Brownwood area, only to realize we weren't at the right sites to find them. Well, if there was a place to collect beautiful Petalodus teeth, it would be the Wilson Clay Pit. With that in mind, I excitedly set out on a starry night drive. When I arrived, the sun had just beaten me to Brownwood. Temperatures in Central Texas dropped off recently, so we were looking at a frigid day just above freezing. Everyone was covered head to toe in heavy duty winter wear. Nevertheless, optimism was high, so I didn't hear much complaining! When we got to the site, I was blown away by its dramatic terrain. All of the previous quarry work had created huge artificial mounds of gravel and slabs filled with a variety of vibrant colors. In my opinion, it didn't have the beauty of a natural landscape, rather, the inner fossil-hunter in me was simply in awe of the virtually limitless acreage of huntable ground. Exposed randomly throughout was the Harpersville Formation and Saddle Creek Limestone. After @erose gave us a brief introduction to the site, we all disappeared our own ways into the vast, maze-like property. Notice how there's no one else in the pictures? The pit is huge. If it weren't for the greenery, you might think it's Mars. Most people headed off to one side of the entrance or went straight to the back. I was drawn more to the opposing side where there was a huge mound to climb. My goal was to find a spot that hadn't been touched by previous hunters (some mentioned that the Houston club may have been there recently already), so I was trying to get to places a bit more tedious to reach. Crawling up the gravelly incline, I wiped out within the first ten minutes. Luckily, when I turned around, everyone was already gone . From there, things started off a bit slow. I was scanning the ground, picking up anything mildly interesting since it was all new to me. It took a thousand crinoid stems before my eyes locked onto the bright white color of what could be the "porcelain" appearance of enamel. Nope, just bird poop. This cycle repeated five times before I finally found my first undeniable chip of Petalodus! Lots of Petalodus chunks to be had. These are only the ones I decided to keep! I took this to be a sign that virgin ground was finally reached and immediately got to being more thorough in my search. Pretty soon, the tiny teeth bits became more common than the bird poop and my intensity increased accordingly. After a solid 15 minutes of following the cookie crumbs, I was met with a sight that stole my breath. Before me lay a stone with a giant Petalodus perfectly prepped by natural weathering. It was a hundred times better than what I had expected coming into the day. I quickly snapped a photo and got to carefully packaging it in my backpack. Already, my trip was made. An awesome Petalodus specimen. The tooth is about 45 mm across and 54 mm from top to bottom. The day was still young, so I got back up and went to searching. I think my eyes were only attuned to sharky things as those were what I was picking up the most. My bias towards white objects paid off even more as I accumulated a small collection of Deltodus fragments. I like that their white color contrasts nicely with the black Deltodus I found in my last PSoA trip. Halfway through the day, I looped back around to the entrance where I decided it would be best to drop off my prize find, in case I wiped out again later. Because of my vertebrate success from earlier, I set myself to make some invertebrate finds and give balance to my collecting. I found that the purple layer was invertebrate rich and had heard of the possibility for crinoid calyxes, trilobites, conularids, and more. Climbing up and sliding down the purple slopes was blast. There was often something new to reward the effort and my pockets were quickly heavy with brachiopods, crinoid material, and horn corals. This is not edited. The stuff really is this purple. Unfortunately, I wasn't making any out of this world finds on the invertebrate side, so I instead continued my search while also hiking around the entire perimeter of the pit. The eastern border extended pretty far. As I traveled that way, I noticed more and more chert covering the ground. Some had mentioned arrowheads being found on that side of the property, but I didn't see much worked material. As I circled around, I decided to say screw it with the inverts and go back to searching for teeth. I began inspecting rocks of similar appearance to the ones in which I had found teeth before and made a breakthrough. I couldn't believe it when I spotted the crowns of two decently sized Petalodus poking out of two separate boulders. Unfortunately, the limestone was very tough and I knew that getting them out without shattering them would be nearly impossible. My time would be better spent looking for more accessible ones; if there were two that could be found just like that, then surely there were many more nearby. After showing the teeth to Brian, another PSoA member, we both went on a quest to find a perfect specimen that could pop out. As I travelled up the adjacent mound, I did find a decently sized Petalodus, though most of the crown was missing from weathering. It came out in one piece, but I decided to give it away. Not so long after, I followed up with a beautiful smaller tooth that was entirely burnt orange. In my excitement, I forgot to take an in situ pic and immediately began planning a method of attack. Of course, such an awesome find just had to be buried under a thorn bush. Brian was a great help, pulling away the thorny branches so I could get in and make some swings with the hammer and chisel. It took some work, but the durable limestone eventually gave way and the chunk with the tooth came out. After gathering myself, I noticed that some of the root had splintered off. I did manage to locate one piece of it, but the rest was nowhere to be found. Can't win em all, but still happy with it nonetheless. Another beautiful Petalodus. This one is 37 mm wide and 33 mm tall. By then the sun was setting. Most of the group had already gone home, so it was just me, Brian, and Melvin atop the mound. We had some nice discussion, but I think we were all a bit worn out from a day's worth of running around this fossil hunter's paradise. The weather, too, had gotten tired of strangling us with cold, and a final gentle breeze flowed passed the hilltop. God rays poked out from the Westerly clouds to illuminate the distant expanse of greenery I hadn't noticed until then. The moment was nice. After saying our goodbyes, I was a little dejected seeing that I would soon no longer live in Austin and would thus miss out on a lot of future club activities. PSoA has got a really great community, and I'm glad I was there to experience a bit of it firsthand. Luckily, they do have a lot of trips far away from Austin, so I'm sure we will meet again for a future adventure, someday, once they travel close by my neighborhood. Until then, here are some pics of my finds from my latest PSoA field trip: Petalodus ohioensis? teeth Bryozoans, horn corals, and fusunilids Archaeocidarid plate, crinoid arm (Delocrinus) and stem, and a couple of oddities (perhaps conularid or Poterioceras cephalopod fragments?) Straparollus? gastropod and some gastropod from the order Bellerophontida Whole lot of brachiopods. I think bottom center is Meekella. Is that rare? I only found one. Big purple bivalve Shark family photo Thanks for reading!

There are few reasons why I would ever wake up at 5 am and begin a two and a half hour drive out to the middle of nowhere. When I saw that the PSoA was heading out to the Brownwood area, I knew it was an opportunity too good to pass up. Everything I had hunted prior might as well have been buried yesterday when compared to the mind-blowing ages of Pennsylvanian and Permian rocks. It's still crazy to think that those formations were roughly three times the age of the oldest stuff I'd seen before. When I peeled out of the parking garage to begin my drive under the stars, I didn't feel an ounce of fatigue. Instead, every part of me was overflowing with a general eagerness to explore a fantastic new chapter in the story of life on Earth. Not so long after the sun had risen, I finally spotted a glint of morning light reflecting off the end of a caravan of parked cars along the roadside. I abruptly shook off the daydreams of petalodus teeth and crinoid crowns as I got myself parked and arranged my tools. Melvin, the trip organizer, was quick to introduce himself and gave a run down of the day's itinerary along with what we were looking for. I must admit I was a little disappointed when he told me that petalodus, or any sharks for that matter, were not really known from either of our destinations. Nevertheless, there was still some pretty amazing things to find and he was adamant that the excursion would be an enjoyable experience for everyone. The first stop was in the Adams Branch Limestone of the Canyon Group, along a crumbly, slanted roadcut. No matter where I looked, the ground was buried in crinoid stems, bryozoans, and various shell bits. Carefully maneuvering my way around the cactuses, I poked and pried through the rubble at an area Melvin said was productive for smaller specimens. Faintly, I could hear the conversations up the road being carried by the wind. Some of the other folks in the party were repeat customers of the site and were on the search for trace fossils of starfish coming from an elusive layer. My involuntary eavesdropping came back to bite me when I found a strange little fossil that looked just like a leg of a starfish. When I proudly presented it to Melvin and the folks searching for traces, they kindly informed me that it was a piece of crinoid arm . Hash plates from the Pennsylvanian site. The one on the bottom is my favorite. Once I got back to my spot, I decided it was probably best to save show and tell for after I had some time to cool down and really think about my what I picked up. Luckily, the next few finds were pretty easy to identify simply off of my prior research (sporadic googling). First, I found some really pretty hash plates. Each one is like a slice of Paleozoic sea floor with so much detail it's impossible to not lose your train of thought when staring into them. Next, I snagged a handful crinoid plates and spines. When I reached down for what I thought was another plate, I stopped dead in my tracks. Laying before me was a beautiful crinoid crown. Ethelocrinus magister crown. The day continued on with neat little brachiopods, straight-shelled nautiloids, and the usual suspects. We had probably been there for a couple of hours when we got the heads up that we would soon be moving to our next location. There was definitely a little added sense of urgency to my movements from then, but I still made sure to thoroughly inspect every nook and cranny. As my eyes frantically shifted across the ground, I briefly spotted a small object of interest before losing it. With time running out, I tried to retrace where I had looked and thankfully I was met with a familiar image. When I picked up the tiny, black geometric stone, I noticed white pitting all over one of its side. If I hadn't seen something similar online before, I may have tossed it. At the time, I couldn't remember the name, but I had a gut feeling this could very well be the crusher shark/chimera, deltodus. I got to talk with Melvin one last time before we left the area. I was already pretty happy with the crinoid crown, but Melvin's excitement was contagious and made me feel even better. I took the opportunity to also show him the possible shark tooth. He seemed intrigued, but we couldn't come up with an ID for it at the time. Deltodus ~ After a quick break, we conga lined our way 45 minutes north to our next site. A short hike with lakeside scenery later, we arrived to an outcrop of Permian limestone on a private ranch. Melvin explained that this site was known to produce trilobites, unlike our first stop. At that moment, I set myself on finding at least one so I could cross that major trilo milestone in every fossil hunter's career. Permian outcrop From afar, the ground looked pretty similar to before. Upon closer inspection, however, I noticed a wide variety of brachiopod species I helped myself to. A lot of people were discussing the brachiopod, Wellerella which is known for its zig-zagged appearance. One person brought along his golf ball-sized specimen. In the field, the biggest I could find was the size of a pea . Thankfully, the lack of luck with brachiopods was paid back in full when I found my first trilobite!.. and another... and another! The two best pygidium trilos. The left one was curled in and flattened, so it appears to have some of the head still attached. I have no idea on any possible species, so I welcome any input from our resident trilo experts. The sun was reaching its apex and the temperatures rose accordingly. Lots of people called it there and the majority decided to head home after a long day of hunting. I and another family chose to stick it out just for a little longer; we drove all this way after all. Me and Brian, the father of the family, had a nice talk about our lives and the hobby (with our heads locked on the ground of course). I don't know many fossil enthusiasts in my personal life, so it was refreshing to be able to speak face to face with someone who had similar interests. Hopefully, we'll see each other again on the November trip to Brownwood. Here are some pictures of the finds: Pennsylvanian crinoid bits and bobs. The centerpiece is my "starfish arm" . Pennsylvanian Orthoceras?, Deltodus, various bivalves, and Euphemites? gastropod Pennsylvanian Lophophyllidium horn corals, various corals?, various brachiopods. The bigger one (Neospirifer?) I might get cleaned by someone else. It's complete and I don't want to mess it up. Far right Derbyia? Delocrinus inflexus? and Ethelocrinus magister Permian Neochonetes Permian brachiopods. Top right Juresania?, bottom right Wellerella, middle top Composita. Permian crinoid bits and bobs. One of the spines is regenerating. Permian horn corals, and Archeocidaris plates and spines. I like the spiky spines. And lastly an enigmatic Permian find. Some kind of weird brachiopod? Could be weird cephalopod maybe. Has symmetry. Outside looks "woody". Thanks for reading!