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I was finally able to make it down to Delta to go to the U-Dig Quarry and have all my mudbug dreams come true. While the husband and I didn't make any huge or groundbreaking finds, we did come home with about two Home Depot buckets full of loose trilobites, mortality plates, and big chunks of shale ready to be split. I decided to try my hand at prepping some of the loose bugs using a stainless steel brush and a dremel. The first victim: before And after. I'll admit that I was nervous that the brush would scratch up the trilobite, but it seemed to come out pretty okay. So I tried it again. Before. After. I can't wait to clean up everything else, and I can't wait to get back out there and hunt some more! I just wish this wildfire smoke would subside... Happy hunting, everyone!

I am planning on getting some U-dig shale and was wondering what to use to split it? Thanks in advance.

Got my u-dig shales in the mail and went through the pieces and found this. Is it just a piece of a trilobite head or something else? It's about 2cm. Thanks!

We are just back from a delightful fossiling experience in Utah and Colorado. I want to share just one find now, an Elrathia Kingi from the U-Dig site outside of Delta. There are great descriptions of the quarry in other posts, with directions. I have been here before and always had a satisfying experience. The arrangement this year is that you can either locate yourself someplace in the quarry and break piles of shale the U-Dig folks have conveniently collected for you, or you can break shale out of the quarry yourself and then further split it to see what it might hold. You can break a lot of shale with modest success, so you have to be patient. But if you hit a productive layer it pays off. This is the largest trilobite I’ve found there, or for that matter, the largest I’ve found anywhere. The photo is of the quarry so you can get an idea of the terrain. And the views from the quarry down to the flats are dramatic. Going out there on the BLM road off Rt 50, I saw no sign to the New Dig site, another pay to dig site, which might be further up the road. U-Dig is open without reservation required whereas all the New Dig signs we saw in Delta said you needed a reservation. This is a great family activity and both days we were there this month had lots of kids enjoying the experience. It is big enough that no one need get in anyone else’s way.

I got a nice delivery of shale from udig for Christmas, i've just been in the freezing cold splitting and having fun. Here are my finds. I'll post better and more clear pictures when they dry. I washed them and put them infront of the radiator to dry, is that a good thing?

Had an awesome day digging at U-Dig with @FossilSloth So the hound and the sloth hung out today and we pounded rocks from sun up to sun down. I found the largest Asaphiscus wheeleri I've ever seen and Justin scored a good number of Elrathia kingii. The find of the day a was massive Asaphiscus wheeleri. The trunk is full of Utah trilobites to prep this winter. Had an awesome day. Exhausted yet determined to find some more. The U-Dig season closes soon and I already miss this place. Justin and I holding up some of our finds. It's always fun meeting up with another forum member. Justin hauled off seven buckets full of trilobites, sponges, and brachiopods! One of Justin's buckets. I see an Elrathia kingii multiplate! Another Elrathia kingii awaiting preparation. Really going to miss this place. Sunset over the ancient sea ways. Up close of the day maker. Another angle. I'll post more trilobites as I prep them out. Found a myriad of Perenopsis and will post those later. The site manager showed us a secret spot full of them. Here is a video of all the neat trilobites we found in between one of the Shale slabs: That's all for now folks!

My wife and I just got back from a 1700-mile road trip from our home in Northern California to do some trilobite hunting in Utah and Nevada. It was a 5-day trip, with a total of about 8 hours of digging spread across 2 days, but well worth it. I will give you the highlights here. After driving across California, we spent the first night in Reno, then headed out on Highway 50 toward the U-Dig fossil quarry out of Delta, Utah. We spent the second night in Ely, Nevada. Along the way, we stopped in Austin for lunch and helped the owner of a nearby trading post identify an unknown fish fossil they had for sale (you can read about that here). We got to U-Dig mid-morning of the third day and spent half a day there. The last 20 miles is a drive along a well-maintained dirt road (good enough that with my stock 4WD SUV I could drive 50-55 mph along most of it). Other people on this forum have posted about their experiences at U-Dig, so I won’t spend a lot of time repeating the basics. We were pleased with the support we got from Gene and if you’ve never been there, I would recommend it. This was my second time there (the first was 8 years ago), and my wife’s first time. I have to say we weren’t as successful as on my last visit, but still got a good haul. Most, however, were only molts or partials, we got very few full trilobites. I’ve included some photos below. Lots of prep work still remaining, and I’ll probably split several of the slabs again to see what else I might find. If you go, one word of advice. They will provide you with a chisel-edge rock hammer, a 2-lb sledge and large chisel, and a bucket to hold everything you find. I brought all my own stuff and am glad I did. They show you how to split the shale with the chisel edge of the hammer, but I found that to be a fairly coarse way to do it. I found it much easier to use thin rock-splitting chisels like these. They are cheap, so I’d recommend you take one or two along. The next day we headed out to Caliente, Nevada, to dig at the Oak Springs Trilobite Site just off Highway 93. There is no fee to dig here, which means there is no one to advise you, you’re on your own. This is another Cambrian site with the possibility of finding several species of Olenellus trilobites. We got there just after lunch and spent the afternoon there. The parking area is about a quarter mile from the highway down a good dirt road (but not a 50-mph road!). Most people park there and walk a quarter mile along a developed path to the dig. If you’ve done your homework, though, you’ll know you can continue another short distance and park just at the base of the swale where the trilobites are. That makes it an easy walk, especially if you are carrying a lot of tools. in addition to my tool bag, I was carrying a Harbor Freight pry bar and my brand new Estwing PaleoPick, so I was happy to shorten the walk. You can tell when you are at the site because it is littered with broken pieces of shale and there are potholes all around where people have been digging. We spent the first couple of hours without any luck as I moved from one location to another. Then I moved to yet another location and immediately saw a cephalon so I knew my luck was changing. It turned out to be a mini mother-lode of cephalons but no full trilobites, which apparently are very rare. While we found a few cephalons among the loose pieces of shale, I had much better success digging out larger slabs and splitting them. I haven’t yet gone through them in detail to make good identifications but they look primarily like Olenellus species, which are what you will predominantly find. Some sample photos below. Given that I didn’t have to pay to dig and it took considerable effort to find anything, I have to say this was the more enjoyable day of digging. But if you go, be aware that many people who go there don’t find anything. The day we were there I only saw one other person. (He tagged along with my success to dig nearby.) On the way home, we took Nevada Highway 375, known as “The Extraterrestrial Highway” because it runs close to the infamous Area 51. We stopped in the tiny hamlet of Rachel to visit the Little A’le’Inn, a souvenir shop, diner, and motel. If you get the chance, be sure to stop in. On my last U-Dig adventure I spent a night there, which was quite an experience (you can read about it here). I don’t think it has changed much in the last 8 years except there were more tourists there this time. Overall, we had a great time. Once I sort through everything I will post a few samples for help with identification. The sign along US Highway 6: U-Dig office: Steve digging (friendly dogs belong to another digger): The haul back at home: Elrathia kingii (I think it's a molt): Small Elrathia kingii: Peronopsis (needs more prep):

Here is a paradox that was found at U-DIG while searching for trilobites. At first I thought pelecypod but as I started prepping I didn't find a shell. Instead I found it full of small cubes. I didn't take a pre-prep photo but I stopped prepping so you can see the shape and the gray surface. The white cube is one centimeter. Second photo.

Yesterday morning my cousin Matt picked me up at my in-laws in Alpine, UT at 6:30 am and we travelled down to U-Dig south of Delta to dig for Cambrian trilobites and other marine life. It was a three hour drive and we came into the quarry at the perfect time. Robin (Rob), the helper on site brought out some very neat finds including an ammonite hash, ammonite, and an Asaphiscus wheeleri with a green tint to it. Rob guided us to a spot that had been ripped up the previous day by their onsite bulldozer. There were large slabs of shale everywhere for the splitting and we where the only ones out there besides another early riser who's name also happened to be Matt. I'll call him M2 (Matt the second). To my utter shame and disappointment I did not take any pictures of us or the quarry we where digging in because I was having so much fun splitting shale open and going through large slabs of shale as fast as I could. My arms and hands are very sore today but it was worth every second. Towards the end of the day Rob came over and let us split some shale in their 15 foot layer which is famous for containing large Asaphiscus wheeleri. These trilobites are much harder to find than the ever so common Elrathia kingi and the layer is usually off limits to the public. Within about an hour at the 15 foot layer I pulled out 3 complete A. wheeleri along with 3 large A. wheeleri molts and some E. kingi's. There were molts everywhere. It was a really good day and despite getting very sunburned I walked away with a large bucket of about 25-30 complete trilobite molts and complete trilobite remains. Unfortunately because I flew out to Utah I was only able to bring home about 5 nice ones from the trip. The rest are in the bucket and shall just have to wait for when I'll return to reclaim them. I might move out to Utah soon so hopefully they won't be in my parent-in-law's garage for to much longer. Rob showing off a large and nearly complete A. wheeleri. I swapped M2 a ryolite nodule from a nearby location for some shark teeth. He was more than happy to do the swap and Rob used the onsite rock saw to slice the nodule in half revealing the inner crystals. The bucket full of trilobites (Asaphiscus and Elrathia) in my in-laws garage. The other half of the nodule. Large E. kingi that needs some more polishing. I'm not certain that this is an Elrathia nor is it an Asaphiscus. The pygidium on an Elrathia is much wider. There's a slight chance that this could be an Alokistocare because a Bolaspidella's axial lobe would be much thicker. I would be happy if this was a Alokistocare because they are very rare. Regardless of the species this appears to be a molt. To bad it's not the real deal but I still like it and Rob did a good job at prepping it out of the shale. Rob puts mineral oil on the tops of the trilobites to give them a dark black coating. @Fossildude19 please call in the trilobite experts to assist in the identification of this one. It could be a compressed Elrathia but I'm not certain. This is a large Asaphiscus I found a few years ago and it has a greenish hue. About 6 diggers went through U-Dig that day and I found the largest Elrathia kingi. Doesn't that merit some kind of free dinner or gift card? ;-) Large Elrathia kingi. Another decent sized Elrathia. Rob showing off his green Asaphiscus from his own personal dig from last week. M2 showing off some topaz on a piece of ryolite. Rob gave me a little baggy to place my large Elrathia in and it had this cool info sheet in it. I'm very impressed at the way U-Dig has gone above and beyond to get everyone in the family involved in the thrill of paleontology and geology. Rob showing off a compressed ammonite he found a few weeks ago. I absolutely love the color on this rare (for Utah) fossil. The entrance to U-Dig. Really wish I would have taken a before and after photo of the quarry because we tore up so much shale that day. Here's a nice multi-plate of two Elrathias. One is a real specimen the other the molt. Perhaps the real specimen was buried shortly after it shed it's exoskeleton. I ordered some Riker cases a few weeks ago and was pleasantly surprised to see them at my door step upon arriving home from Utah today. Here's some of my nicer finds from U-Dig in a smaller Riker case.

While we were at U-dig in Utah, Kim found this looks cool but does anyone have any idea what it could be?