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I went to St Leon Indiana, and I had a pretty good haul!!! Spent the day out there I have several fossils that are from the Ordovician time period and they’re in limestone, limestone shale. Does anyone have any good tips on washing them? Do you prefer dry? Just with a brush? What about any rusted stuff, do you use oxalic oxide? What about algae? Do you prefer water? Soap and water? Hydrogen peroxide? I’m afraid and don’t want to ruin any. Thank you! Jessica

I recently went to the famous St. Leon roadcut for the third time. The previous two times were more exploratory with few good finds to speak of, especially in regards to trilobites. I had a much more fruitful time this trip, including 2 complete rollers and 2 and a half prone flexis (my sister found a gorgeous one). I also came across this plate, where I saw the fossil in the bottom middle that is the subject of this post. At first I thought it was part of a coiled cephalopod, which I hadn't found at this site before. The other fossil, that I'm fairly certain to be a cephalopod, on the left in the previous picture also lead to that conclusion. However the plate is also covered in Isotelus pieces, which I am not very familiar with. And from looking at Isotelus specimens, I was wondering if it could be part of the thorax or something. Here are some other pictures of the plate, if there's anything else on it that's interesting, let me know. It's mostly a mash of trilobite and crinoid pieces, with some gastropods mixed in, as far as I can tell.

Three days ago, I made my first trip ever out to the St. Leon road cut in hopes of finding my first ever identifiable trilobite fossil. I had found only one trilobite before along the Ohio River, and much of it had eroded to where it was unrecognizable. St. Leon did not disappoint, even in spite of my cluelessness about which formation was which. After searching for awhile in the rain and beginning to feel discouraged about not finding a trilobite, I saw this fellow tucked away in a large rock. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring anything for scale, but the trilobite was roughly 2 cm across. I left the rock with the hopes of finding another trilobite that would be easier to take home. Just as I was beginning to trek back to my car, I found “Tilly” directly under my boot: It wasn’t a complete trilobite, but I was and am exceedingly happy with the features on this fossil. I left soon after for the day with this fossil in haul and a few others, which are included in the following images (it is worthy to note that in between my collection of the trilobite and my taking the picture below, I had done roughly 5 hours of prep work with a dental pick and a toothbrush): For the next time I post, I will certainly purchase a ruler or standard cm cube and find a better surface to place the fossils on, but this is all I have at home at the moment. I returned to St. Leon today with a similar objective as my first outing: trilobites. Once again, I was not disappointed. As you can see, these will need a lot more prep work than Tilly, but I’m excited for the challenge. I also found some other neat fossils whilst searching today: Overall, I am very happy with my trips down to St. Leon, and felt they were productive. For someone who is relatively new to the hobby, the road cut makes many types of fossils accessible in one small place, which is very neat. The area just requires cautious and careful movement, as much of the road cut is effectively cliffs of rock. If anyone feels the inclination to point out any genera or species of the fossils, I would greatly appreciate it, though I understand that the images I took are not of great quality. I know Tilly is a Flexi (F. meeki?), but that is admittedly the extent of my knowledge. Thank you for reading through this transcript of my journeys! P.S. I’m including another image of post-prep Tilly for fun. I tried to scrape more, but the fossil was just too fragile and kept breaking on me.

I decided to leave at 5 am on Friday to head down to a roadcut that I read about that was located in Maysville, Kentucky. I knew that it was at the right off of AA Highway so I decided to grab a hotel in Wilder, Kentucky which seems to be the start of the roadcuts that are on AA Highway. After 5 hours of driving I was in Wilder and started down AA Highway knowing that I might stop at a couple roadcuts prior to hitting the big one in Maysville. Believe it or not, if you count all of the roadcuts that are on the 41 mile drive from Wilder to the turn off for Maysville you will pass, if my counting is correct 120 places to collect. Now I counted each side as a separate roadcut since sometimes I find different things on each side. This will be a picture heavy post since I stopped at Maysville twice, plus 8 other roadcuts on AA Highway and on the way home Sunday I spent about 5 hours at St. Leon, Indiana. I will be identifying the locations using the name that is associated with the pictures that I took with my I-Phone, not sure if the cities / towns are correct, but besides Maysville and St. Leon, all of the stops were on AA Highway. Stop 1 was at a roadcut in Melbourne, Kentucky. Like most of the places that collected at in Kentucky it has a heavy concentration of bryozoan, there were also trace fossils and Trilo-bits. Here are a couple pics of what can be found here. Trace Fossils- Hash plate with Flexicalymeme Trilo-bits- Bryozoans- Stop 2 was at another roadcut in Melbourne. This site I found the bivale Ambonychia. Bryozans- Hash plates with Hebertella brachiopods and Isotelus trilo-bits. Orthoconic nautiloids- Other Trilo-bits of Flexicalymene. Stop 2 Trace fossils to follow-

Well I decided to do a REDO from my reports from last week and drove back down to Brookville, Indiana to re-search Garr Hill again with the hopes of finding the other piece to this rare trilobite (Amphilichas halli) portion that I found last Friday, unfortunately, my endeavor was unsuccessful, but fun. While I was in Southern Indiana, I did hit 2 hills in Brookville (Garr Hill and Bon Well Hill), I then headed to South Gate Hill in St. Leon before heading to the hotel. This morning I stopped at the large roadcut in Lawrenceburg and before heading home I made a quick stop again at the South Gate Hill. Both days it was extremely hot +90 degrees and full sunshine. Whenever I am outside collecting I always wear boots, long pants and shirt, gloves and a hat. With all of those close on, I never feel too hot and I am constantly hydrating during the +6-9 hours that I am out collecting each day. Like last week, I did not see any other collectors and I had the place to myself. I did collect multiple hash plates at these sites, I am going to bring them down to my brother so he can place them in his yard. Garr Hill- Brookville, Indiana: Here are a couple pics of the area and some finds. Bon Well Hill- Brookville, Indiana: This area is very steep and with area being very dry it is very difficult to ascend this hill and I will re-visit it later in the year. This hill has a lot to offer but you need to be able to navigate it and not slide down when trying to do so- LOL.