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I bought a box of shale from U-dig for my family to get some trilobites. This the 40lb box. Posting pictures for others to know how it comes. The shale is carefully packaged in a large flat rate box. The shale on the top shows trilobite fossils as soon as paper is uncovered. I am happy with the shipment. Definitely should be enough triolobites for the whole family.

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?

Since my move to Utah two weeks ago I have been dying to return to U-Dig. My wife allowed me to go on one condition, that I would be back home by 3:30 in time for her brothers farewell party as he is going on his Mormon mission next Wednesday. I ended up calling Shayne the quarry owner, explaining my dilemma and asked him if I could start digging at 7:00 am, two hours before the site opened. Surprisingly he approved and I called Bevan. Bevan was going to man the station at U-Dig so Shayne wanted me to give him a heads up. I awoke on Saturday morning at 3:30 am and hit the road at 3:45. I was at the site by 6:45 and digging by 7:00 am just in time to see the sun come up over the hills and the sun rays radiate off of the storm clouds from an early morning storm. Had a phenomenal trip. Dug up fifteen Asaphiscus wheeleri, eight Elrathia kingii, and one Perenopsis. If you ever get the chance to dig here do it. You will not come away disappointed. I met a gentleman named Nick from Syracuse, New York and we talked about all the neat sites in western New York, primarily Penn Dixie. Bevan volunteered me to show three guys who had never dug the Windom shale on how to find good trilobites. We all walked away with some great finds. Breathtaking view at sunrise. Notice the dispersing rain clouds. An omen for a perfect day. I certainly miss Calvert Cliffs in Maryland along with some other eastern coast marine fossil locations but the view here in Utah is absolutely sublime. The nothingness of the desert has a certain beauty to it. Witnessed two antelope on my way out and one of them was matching the speed of my car at 40-45 MPH these amazing animals can top out at 55 MPH and they need to be that fast because Mountain Lions also referred to as Cougars or Puma top out at 50 MPH. I was certainly on the lookout for scorpion, rattlesnake, and Cougars but didn't see any. Rattlesnake seem to be the most common and dangerous. An assortment of Asaphiscus and Elrathia. Most are molts but some are complete or near complete. The bottom left is complete (2 inch) and bottom right is near complete. Both are Asaphiscus wheeleri and large for their size. This is the find of the day and more uncommon than Elrathia kingii. This is a prone two inch Asaphiscus wheeleri. Bevan noted there is some oxidation but that could be prepped off. Not sure what to do with it. Might need to send this one to a professional *cough* @Malcolmt *cough* though I do owe some of these to my other Canadian friend *cough* @Kane *cough Disarticulated Elrathia kingii. I normally don't see them like this and there are some orange flakes where the top side broke off. I believe this one is a complete specimen and not a molt. Interesting preservation for this specimen. Found this large Elrathia kingii out in the open next to a bunch of rock with hammer marks. Someone must have been splitting rock and this specimen popped out. Not the best Asaphiscus but should make for some good preparation practice. Large Asaphicus wheeleri molt. For most of the day I was targeting these as opposed to the more common Elrathia kingii and found a really good location where a bunch of Asaphiscus where colocated. 1.5 inch Elrathia kingii. Should prep out nicely from a gentle dremmel brush. Another near two inch A. wheeleri. This one appears to be a molt. The disarticulated E. kingii. A collection of E. kingii. Most are molts. One large slab contained about fifteen of these but I didn't want to haul it back to the car. It was a great day. E. kingii. Should be complete. Needs some prep work. Close up of the big one. Large Asaphiscus molt and there appears to be another inverted over to the left. The yellow color on this Asaphiscus is interesting and I believe Bevan said this was oxidation. I'll need to do some more research as to why this happens. This would have been a phenomenal specimen but the glabella is missing. I'll give it to a friend. Disarticulated Asaphiscus molt. Elrathia that should prep nicely. This one is interesting. It appears to be a complete Asaphiscus but is inverted revealing the ventral side. If anyone is up for a prep challenge let me know and I'll send this to you.The color is a dark brown and should make for a very nice specimen. Love the brown color on this Asaphiscus. They usually don't come in this color and the brown is a result of oxidation. Another E. kingii in need of some prep love. Sometimes you'll find what I call ghosts where the specimen is preserved under a thin layer of shale. These generally prep out well albeit this one is a partial molt. Saving it for some prep practice. Some more molts. Partial Asaphiscus that will make for some good prep practice.

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.

I will be taking the family on our trip to Kemmerer the 2nd weekend of June. This is the trip sseth offered up to auction back in Nov/Dec. My 4th had to back out due to a family issue so I posted the open slot under the rolling auction if anyone is interested in joining us out there under sseth's guidance for 2 full days of eocene rock fishing the green river. I will also be hitting Big Cedar Ridge in WY for some cretaceous plant fossils on the 6th and U-dig in UT for some cambrian trilobites for a couple of hours on the 12th in case anyone's looking for digging company that week. I tried reaching out to both Black Cat Mountain and Thiessen Quarry in OK looking for a solo trip on 6/15, but I haven't heard back from either. If anyone has a lead they would be willing to share I would appreciate finding a way to connect with one of them before we go. It's shaping up to be one heck of a trip and I look forward to sharing pics of our adventures when we return. Let me know if anyone is interested in trying to coordinate times at any of the locations.