Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'St Clair'.
-
I saw a post on facebook that someone was looking to get rid of some fossils they had collected locally so I arranged to meet up this afternoon. Most of what was being offered were carboniferous fossil ferns from St Clair and they had some beautiful examples from the site that has been closed to collecting for several years now.
- 8 replies
-
- 12
-
- carboniferous
- devonian
-
(and 5 more)
Tagged with:
-
Is it possible to get into the St. Clair Formation as an organized school group
AncientAndy posted a topic in Questions & Answers
To start, I’m aware that the St Clair PA area owned by Reading Anthracite that contains the white ferns is closed for collecting in any general sense. However I have seen posts in the past and discussion that they allow organizations, often with a university, to collect. I just wanted to make a post to see if anyone is aware of this being the case, and the best way to go about reaching out if so. I am a member of the AIPG chapter at WSU in Detroit, and the officers of our group reached out to me to help organize a fossil collecting trip, and I thought it was worth consideration due to our position. And as a side piece if anyone has any other recommendations for spots or quarries to go to or reach out to as a medium-large group that’s doable in a day to 2-day trip out of Detroit I’d happily take those as well. I have a handful of other spots in mind but I’m sure there’s plenty more.- 2 replies
-
- collection
- group
- (and 8 more)
-
Many years ago my dad and I visited St. Clair, PA to collect its famed Late Pennsylvanian plant material. With the closure of St. Clair to public collecting, several years ago, we went to the next best place: Centralia, PA. In going back through our finds to ascribe a proper classification to them, I have come across several finds that I believe could either be Calamites stems or Cordaites leaves. The issue is that these fossils preserved without much detail to go on. In doing some research online and on here, I think I have figured it out, but I am not completely sure. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks! At St. Clair, we found several of these wide impressions. It appears to lack any diagnostic features to make it easily identifiable. Calamites stems? At Centralia, we found this not-as-wide impression. This one does have some detail to it. You can see what looks to be veins running vertically. Cordaites leaf piece? This issue though is that we also found this larger impression at Centralia that I also believe to be a Cordaites leaf. This similarly has vertical lines, but they are somewhat different from the other piece. I don't think this is a Calamites stem impression because of its width and the fact it is missing recognizable horizontal breaks. But perhaps I have this all mixed up.
-
I found these two pieces many years ago during a visit to St. Clair, PA (Llewellyn Formation; Late Pennsylvanian). I initially identified them as Cyperites but now I am starting to confuse myself because, as you can see in the third photo, these leaves are much wider than what I would normally attribute to a lycopod, which I have always understood to be long thin wispy leaves. The fourth photo is meant to provide a more close-up image of the leaves. Should I stick with the Cyperites identification or is there a more accurate identification? Any help is greatly appreciated The two pieces: The width of the leaves A close-up
-
From my collection of St Clair plant material - any ideas? Less than half a centimeter thick, about two inches long.
- 7 replies
-
- pennsylvania
- st clair
-
(and 5 more)
Tagged with:
-
I read @rachelgardner01 's trip report* recently on the fossil forum telling about St. Clair-style white fern fossils and how the ghost town was once again being visited by more than just the most reckless of thrill seekers. Not long ago, extremely few people dared to go beyond the new bypass for fear of falling into flaming sink holes. The place has become unregulated like the Wild West, with tourists coming from all over to see the “Highway to Hell” and ride their ATVs. The fire was reported to have burned out in town and moved down the coal vein. Clearly, no one is worried about sink holes. After a couple hours enjoying every ride with no lines at Knoebels Amusement Park on a very foggy, soggy day, we drove to Centralia for a little fun. What could be cooler than a ghost town on a foggy October day? And, by the way, after enjoying the romantic setting, maybe we could find the quarry. Rachel's trip report included a handy aerial map with the slope marked in red. It was a short walk from on of three cemeteries that are still maintained in town. All we had to do was follow the ATV tracks. We met a microbiologist while we walked. She was looking at the bacteria, comparing soil samples from places where the fire was out with samples from some hot spots above a fire that still exists deep below town (with surface soil temps around 80F). The bacteria present in the hot spots are out of balance. There is an overabundance of the wrong sort. However, in the spots that have cooled down, the balance has returned surprisingly quickly. And, by the way, she had a permit to be there. The town is still considered too unsafe for the general public, but it isn’t patrolled. Two lessons should be learned from this: 1. Nature always finds a way. 2. If the rocks I’m examining seem kind of warm, find someplace else to prospect! We found the quarry about an hour before sunset. We found ourselves at the top of steeply sloping walls covered in scree over smooth, slick, carbon shale. I watched my step, kept my center of gravity close to the ground, and tread carefully. I like sliding down scree-covered slopes, but not when I do it unintentionally. The fossils were plentiful! I saw calamites and lepidodendron all over the place. Some were bright white while others were gleaming gray on matte gray shale. Some had a single fern frond and others were a riot of plant textures. A few were coated pale yellow. The hard part was picking out the nicest ones to take home. I have been to this formation before. I made several trips to Carbondale, to the NE, over the last couple years. I missed my chance to go prospecting at St Clair ( a few miles to the SE ) as they closed the site to all but school groups a few years ago, but I do have some pieces that others collected before they closed. St Clair and Centralia both have the white ferns. Carbondale has the most detailed preservation. The ones there that are colored are yellow to deep red with a few that have iridescent spots. Centralia’s stone is the most crumbly and delicate, especially when damp. Although Centralia, St. Clair and Carbondale are all part of the Lewellen Formation and reasonably close to one another, there is a distinct difference in the stone at each locale. St Clair and Carbondale have firmer shales. I wanted to find things that I did not already have represented from Carbondale. That proved tricky in the short time I had, but I did find some nice white ferns to take home. Plus, I have a plan for another trip at some point with more time – maybe with some simple rappelling gear? Coincidentally, this month’s speaker for the Delaware Mineralogical Society was a geologist who participated in a study of the mineralization of St Clair plants. Here, then, are some of the highlights after I thought to take notes. Time period: Pennsylvanian Sub-period, 320-290 million years old The environment was a swampy area where the sediments settled slowly. The plants were minimally compressed during preservation, so the impressions are more or less the same size as the original biomatter. The silvery-gray material coating some of the plant impressions is graphite while the white is a combination of pyrophyllite and kaolinite after pyrite. When the swamp was buried, the thicker parts of the plants pyritized. Heat and pressure then transformed the pyrite into the white minerals, which settled to the bottom. The upper surfaces retained the carbon and became coated in glossy graphite. So, what one sees loose on the ground are a mix of upper and lower surfaces. *
- 15 replies
-
- 10
-
- centrailia
- pennsylvania
-
(and 6 more)
Tagged with: