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Although I have yet to obtain an academic degree, I practice in my spare time as a freelance artist, occasionally posting my work on DeviantArt. Through my lifelong interest in paleontology, I have tried my hand at illustrating prehistoric life and collecting fossil specimens from localities in Vermont. Through my school, I have created cover art for ZigZag Lit Mag - a local literary magazine that publishes the talent of artists, poets, photographers, and writers throughout Addison County. My artwork can be seen in past issues on their website: zigzaglitmag.org Last year, during the 38th Annual Champlain Valley Gems, Minerals & Fossils Show (held at the H.S Tuttle Middle School), I was accepted as a member of the Burlington Gem & Mineral Club. The club hosts yearly collecting trips to different places throughout New England. When the club hosted trips to quarries in Panton, Vermont last October, I was provided with my first geologic digs. Although beforehand, throughout my life, I have been adding to my own collection of (mainly) fossil specimens - most of which are subjects I have collected here in Vermont, and New Hampshire. I intend to post specimens from my collection on this forum.

A month ago I had the great idea of collecting fossils by canoe. I've walked out on lake ice in the winter to access cliffs normally unreacheable for collecting. Now I felt that I had another great idea to access places not collected from by using my old 16 foot canoe. My plans included taking my collecting partner, my wife. Let me start by saying that my wife does not like open water in a large boat. So getting her to portage a canoe to the lake and paddle along the shore for a half mile or more to look for fossils was impossible. That is until I pointed out that the lake was at a record low and we would be going where she found her 10 inch Isotelus gigas two winters ago. I checked the weather report and the wind was out of the south at 1-2 mph. The weather report noted that in the afternoon storms would roll in bringing winds of 20-25 mph with gusts of 30 mph. I felt confident that we would be back to our car by lunch time, well before the front came. That morning we loaded up our canoe and collecting equipment a little later than I planned and headed for the Champlain Islands. Portaging the 16 foot canoe down a steep embankment was a little tricky for us with all of our gear but we made it without any real difficulties. The lake surface was as flat as glass which was encouraging to my wife so we put in and started paddling north looking for favorable collecting spots. We rounded the point a half mile north of our car and pulled into the beach where my wife had found her Isotelus and we had found several nice Flexicalymene senaria. By the time we reached the beach it was 12:00 but I felt we had time to look around. Before I knew it we had found several nice trilobites for preparation and a large appendage or pleura. While we were after lunch I noticed that the wind was picking up and after 20 minutes of coaxing I convinced my wife that we needed to leave with our 50 pounds of fossils. As we paddled out to the point I noticed that the swells on the lake were getting bigger and that some had white caps. The wind started getting stronger and started to push us out towards the middle of the lake. After 45 minutes of intense paddling I decided that we weren't getting around the point of land. At this point every fifth wave curled over the sides of our canoe and put five gallons of water in it at a time. I told my wife we had to make for shore before we swamped so we turned the canoe around between two swells and surfed into the beach of a private campground. At this point the waves were breaking on the beach and they curled over the canoe as we made land. By the time we dragged our canoe onto shore it was full of water and we were thoroughly soaked. My wife stayed with the canoe while I went to find the campground owner and see if we could cross his property to get our canoe out. Fortunately the owner allowed me to cross his property. One of the campers took me in his car back to my own vehicle and a second camper offered to help me get my canoe to my car. The second gentleman had a hand trailer for moving sailboats which was fortunate as the beach was at the base of a cliff and the nearest egress was 500 yards away. On a side note, as we were dragging my canoe out, the trailer got stuck on a large rock. As I went to move the rock I realized that the rock had an 8-10 in Isotelus gigs enrolled on it. Unfortunately the trilobite was fairly water worn. Despite all of this adventure we came away with a number of very nice trilobites for me to prep this winter. My wife thought the trip was pretty extreme but based on the results said that she would go again provided there were no storms forcast for the afternoon.

This weekend, travelled up north to Plattsburg to visit my friend Ray I know from the New York Paleontological Society. The next day took the ferry across Lake Champlain to Grand isle, Vermont and met Andy (Cluros) and his father. Here are some pics of the ferry ride over:

Hi fellow Fossil Forum members. I have been collecting Vermont trilobites in a location for awhile and am wondering if both of these trilobites are Flexicalymene senaria or do I have two different species. I keep getting conflicting opinions from my fellow collectors. I collected both trilobites from the same area. When I prepped them I thought that were some significant differences in the cephalons. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

A friend of mine asked to see if I could prep his Triarthrus beckii from North Hero, Vermont. I don't think it came out too bad considering the fossil and matrix are of equal hardness.

A few weeks ago I gave two field trip reports on a collecting trip I did on frozen Lake Champlain on the last two days of February. The first day stayed below 10 degrees and the second day warmed up to the teens. Here are the first two trilobites that I prepped from that trip. They are also the third and fourth trilobites I have ever prepared. The second one was difficult because it broke in three pieces and it was covered in crinoid pieces and trilobite pleura.I have several more to do but my microscope lamp died and I am waiting for a replacement bulb.

After having a productive day on the ice yesterday (see Sub Zero Field Trip Report), I convinced my wife Alison to go out with me today. The temperature was a balmy 26 degrees Fahrenheit today. This time I brought a sled, my crack hammer and a slate bar. Instead of repeating the same trek I took my wife to a hundred yard long section of ledge where I found the negative of an Isotelus gigas the day before. Within 15 minutes of arriving Alison found a complete eight-inch Isotelus gigas eight feet up on the cliff on the under side of an overhang. She told me it was too bad we couldn’t get it. I told her that we would continue down the exposure and that I would try and get it on the way back in case I hurt myself trying to collect it. We proceeded down the exposure and collected several Flexicalymene senaria, a cephalopod and what I believe is a small colonial coral. One of the trilobites was behind a boulder leaning on the ledge, which Alison had crawled under. It was very tricky to extract. On the way back I climbed the cliff up to the Isotelus gigas and after about twenty minutes I was able to break the slabs free that the trilobite was on. Unfortunately one of the larger 30-pound blocks bounced funny and hit Alison in the thigh. Fortunately she had my smartphone in her front pocket, which took the brunt of the impact and dispersed the impact so that she was able to walk away without a bruise. I will need a new phone case however. On our long walk back we stopped where we usually collect and Alison sat on a rock. When I looked over at her I saw the largest Flexicalymene senaria we have ever found on its face. Unfortunately the fossil was on a very large rock. The good news was that it fit in the sled. The not so good news was that I had to make three trips up the hill with the sled and had to pull it up the hill to the car by itself because it was so heavy. I now have even more to prep this winter. I guess there are worse problems to have. Because of photo size I will post additional photos as separate posts.

I am hoping for some suggestions on a trilobite that I found yesterday. As can be seen in the pictures I have a trilobite that is at the bottom of the rock layer so that it is ventrally exposed. I would like to do a dorsal prep but if I do then there will only be a trilobite without matrix unless I leave some matrix attached to on of the lateral sides or the cephalon. I toyed with the idea of glueing it to original matrix from where I found it but I'm not sure it would look good. Because this is a Vermont trilobite I believe that it is worth the effort because there aren't many whole Vermont trilobites out there. Any ideas? Because of the file size I have to do a second addition for the second photo.

Let me start off by saying that this has been a much colder than normal winter. The average temperature these past 30 days has been 70 F. Usually we average 220 F this time of year. A friend of mine just sent me pictures of fossils he saw at the Tucson show which really gave me the collecting bug. Last night I decided to go out collecting this morning despite 12-18 inches of snow on the ground. Because of the extreme cold Lake Champlain has frozen solid for the first time in five years. I decided to try collecting using a technique I tried 25 years ago. The method involves walking on lake ice and checking out the ledges that are only accessible by boat in the summer. I packed light because I knew that I would be walking in deep snow for several miles and I didn’t expect to find much. I now wish I had brought heavier equipment, snow shoes and a sled. When I got in my car for the trip up to the Islands my car’s thermometer read -30 F. By the time I got to the parking lot the temperature had rose to a balmy 00 F. After walking for about a mile of familiar collecting ground buried under snow I reached the cliffs that I wanted to look at. While most of the ledges were covered by ice and snow, some protected areas were visible. These ledges are close to the Grand Isle ferry and I noticed that every time the ferry went by their travel zone through the ice about 200 yards away that the ice would pop, crack and buldge under my feet. My mantra for the day was “The ice is over three feet thick. It won’t break out from under me.” Before long I had my first Flexicalymene Senaria, which is known in the Devonian layers I was searching. The cold was so bad that any time I stopped to look at exposed rock my feet would go numb and start hurting. Thankfully there was no wind. Within an hour I collected several of these trilobites in various degrees of completeness. After walking about four miles I saw what looked like a limestone layer that I recognized on other parts of the Island as holding Isotelus Gigas. Within 10 minutes I found an enrolled Isotelus which is still in the rock where I found it. This formation is so hard that a masonry hammer has no chance of breaking it apart. After walking another ten feet I found a prone Isotelus Gigas which is shown in one of the photo’s. Shortly after finding it I found a nice 2 inch Flexicalymene Senaria which I will be prepping as soon as I fix my dust collector.

I've decided to try my hand at prepping my own trilobites. After a failed attempt at a nice Triarthrus becki I decided to pull out a specimen that was questionable to begin with and try again. My first attempt was a failure because the matrix was as hard as the fossil and it stuck to the fossil. While the matrix was also sticky with this one, the matrix was somewhat softer than the fossil. While I am not quite done with this one I thought that I would share my progress. The trilobite is a Flexicalymene senaria and I think is interesting because while the cephalon is attached, it is crushed as can be seen by the photos. At first I wasn't sure the cephalon was there. As can be seen by the first photo it is a less than ideal specimen as the dorsal area is well worn but it is a Vermont trilobite and they are not easy to come by. All of the prep work has been done with an American Air scribe and a single tank Comco unit with 44 micron dolomite. Because of the hardness of the matrix I have had to run the Comco unit at 60 psi. The cephalon has been the slowest part because I wasn't sure where all the pieces were and how it was oriented. The first photo is obviously how it was found. It was well worn by water action. The second photo was taken after two hours. The last two photos were taken after four hours. The prep photos were taken with an iPad. So far here are the cardinal rules that I have learned: Don't start off with a nice specimen. Particle size distribution is important. (I started using dolomite from a ceramics store. A big mistake in my opinion. The particle size was too varied and resulted in nozzle clogging.) Good optics are a must. If you can't see the specimen real sharp it is easy to make a mistake. Reassess your pressure on your micro abraider while working as the hardness of the rock can and does change.

The day after Christmas was unseasonably warm for Vermont at 44 degrees and the foot of snow we got in November had melted. That meant that it was perfect weather for collecting. My wife and I jumped into my always packed car and headed up to the northern Champlain Islands. After several hours of collecting we came away with several nice Triarthrus becki. On the way home we stopped at a location in North Hero that I have been eyeing for the past few years but always drove by because the water was too high and it didn't look very promising. What a mistake. Within 10 minutes my wife had three trilobites on one plate and I had found an inflated graptolite. We left the site with four complete trilobites and several partials. I just started prepping with a Comco unit so I am hoping to have several of them prepped in the next month and posted on the forum.

Here is a photo of a 2 inch Calymene my wife found in Grand Isle , Vermont in October.

While most of the state of Vermont is metamorphic we do have a small portion of the state where we can find fossils. My daughter starts college in Buffalo, New York next week so I am looking for any suggestions for places to explore. I've been to 18 Mile Creek but am looking for other locations with public access. I am interested in trace fossils as I am putting a display case together for our clubs (Burlington Gem & Mineral Clubs) show next year. Thanks, Andy