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  1. A couple weeks ago I was on a fossilunt with my friend Stephen to a Devonian locale near Canandaigua Lake. This was a new spot to me, but is a known spot located on private property. This area is known for crinoids and large Eldredgeops, some up to 3 inches. I went with Stephen and his friend Gary. We arrived shortly after 9am. We parked in the owner's drive way and had a fairly long walk across to cow pastures to get to a creek located in the treeline at the back of the 2nd pasture. This is a Hamilton Group Moscow Formation Middle Devonian site. Crinoid pieces were very abundant in certain layers as well as trilobites in other layers. I found a fewtrilos mostly complete but covered in matrix. Gary found a decent roller. Some rather large corals were found by Stephen. I enjoyed collecting some Naticocema lineata gastrops as these were new to me. I didn't bring a ton of finds home but I was happy with my haul. I am posting pics of my finds, but will post more when I have a chance to take other pics. Some of my finds do not photo well.
  2. Sam Patterson

    Fossil Hill Nevada Fossil Prep

    I was wondering if anyone has done any fossil prep with material from Fossil Hill Nevada?
  3. It's been several years since I've last posted. Had a bit of run-in with a medical issue that took me offline for awhile. I seem to be doing better and have been able to complete a daylong ramble in the local hills albeit at 70% of my former capacity. This trip is in the Sacramento Mountains and covers the hike into the Mississippian Lake Valley (MLV) Formation, specifically the Nunn Formation for collecting. The MLV is the last of the formations in the Mississippian locally. After that I ascended into the lower Pennsylvanian known as the Gobbler Formation here. The two Covid years + my own medical issue brought about a lot of negative trailhead access issues. The detours around these now restricted areas add to the hike length sometimes quite measureably. Once into the distant hills away from humanity things look much brighter. The following is a shot back into town and the White Sands National Park (thin white strip in the distance). I'm standing on the Nunn Formation of the Mississippian Lake Valley Formation. If you can't find a crinoid, horn coral or spirifer here you simply are not trying. A couple of crinoid hash slabs picked off the ground. There are plentiful root and stem pieces but intact calyxes are difficult to find and usually quite small (15mm).
  4. SharkySarah

    ‘Quahog clam’ Mercenaria cuneata

    From the album: Miocene, Maryland and Virginia, USA

    Calvert formation. Scale in cm. Calvert co. Maryland.
  5. I mapped out a quick trip to recover some pet wood I identified last week but failed to initially remove due to having too many ammonites (I know, a real problem!), taking me initially by a Fort Worth formation spot. I found a few huge macraster echinoids (currently being cleaned a little) in tarrant county, a few smaller mortoniceras ammonites, and a nice bivalve. Then I swung by the eagle ford shale where it starts after the woodbine and found 2 conlinoceras and some nice pet wood in addition to my target specimens from last week. Also a bone, currently awaiting ID. Tarrant to dallas counties, TX
  6. Some of the highlights from my last trip to Abbey Wood, an Early Eocene site on the border between London and Kent. Mostly sand tiger teeth, but a few angel shark teeth as well, along with some bivalves and gastropods. Some of the rarer stuff includes a sand tiger vertebra and a vertebra from an unidentified bony fish (the two items in the top left).
  7. Hello Everyone! I managed to get out to hunt for fossils twice this week with today being absolutely awesome. Tuesday I went out with my friend Mike, in hopes of finding Trilobites. Had a great time even though I didn't find any whole Trilos. Mostly Cephalons and Pygidiums. I found a few decent brachiopods. Even though I didn't have much luck it was nice to get out with a friend and enjoy the day. And I was happy for Mike as he found 2 Greenops that I believe are both whole. He has only found 1 complete Eldredgeops in the past so this will be a nice edition to his collection. But today was a whole different story. I invited a few people to come with me today, but they all backed out. So I ended up going by myself. I left the house about 5:30 am. I was not happy when it started raining especially because the forecast didn't call for it. Thankfully when I got there it was just sprinkling and it stayed that way for the 5 and a half hours that I was there. I started my hunt finding alot of decent bivalves, which are not my favorite but were decent enough that I kept them.every once and awhile I would find a trilo head or tail but nothing special. Then eventually I found what appears to be a disarticulated Dipluera, though it might be whole and is mostly under the surface of the matrix. A little while later I find a roller which I believe is complete. Then I lift up a slab and find Dipluera cephalon and part of the thorax stuck to the bottom upside down. I looked down and saw the negative which was complete but the rest of the trilo had fallen off disintegrated. Oh what a Heartbreaker! But I kept going and then I found another roller that is whole except for a portion of the tail came off. Then I found a thorax and pygidium and I am not sure if the cephalon it buried in the matrix or not. Shortly after that I found a negative of a different Dipluera thorax and pygidium, but no matter how much I searched I couldn't find the positive. Also in the mix is a complete Greenops and a partial. I found a huge bivalve, probably the biggest that I have ever seen. I will have to post it in the id section when I get a chance. I should mention that all of the Dipluera's are small and they all need to be prepped, including the Greenops. But what a day! I definitely left there satisfied. Without further adoo here are pics for your viewing pleasure!
  8. Lone Hunter

    An Inoceramid morning and a mystery

    Set out yesterday morning to dig up seedling blue bonnets in area by a gulley I hunt, haven't been there for a year so thought I'd check it out before it started raining. I think this is an outcrop of Britton formation, Eagle Ford. Didn't get far before it started raining so basically filled my bag with globs of clay for most part then proceeded to clog up bathtub washing it all off. Pretty happy with results, wish I could find whole ammonites the preservation is so good, was tickled with two Inoceramus that had some shell. So mystery #1, I'm stumped and afraid to chip at any more not knowing the rest of shape. #2, not sure if the piece of shell is related, looks an awful lot like a ptychodus tooth but I'm sure it's something boring Threw in last one just curious what it could be.
  9. Hello everyone! I've hardly had downtime this November, between work and my fossil hobbies! I've been from one end of the state to another, from doing a display with my fellow club members towards the Appalachian mountains, to hunting by the coastal plains with others. It's fun, but also a bit tiring! I've got just a little more planned before the holidays get into full swing, but for now I'll just show off a little of what I've been doing. It'll kind of be all over the place, much like I have been! I don't want to focus on it too much, as I'm mostly just showing off my finds, but this is a shot of my display I did for a club event in Hickory, NC early in the month. It was mostly comprised of my best finds from the past two years with a few fossils I received from fellow collectors, and I think people enjoyed it! I met a few new friends and got acquainted better some some others, and I was able to snag a sweet piece of literature, which I'll mention again later. Ultimately, it was a great event, and being in the western side of the state for it had put me in a good position to swing out and hit an unusual Triassic spot I've been checking out on my way home. On to the Triassic Troubles; I've, unfortunately, hit a snag with finding a good local spot. Some of the ones recorded in literature are either inaccessible or in a risky location, and the two more well-known areas have been a no-go with the landowners. I got really close on one, but I was cut from contact at the last minute for unknown reasons. It's unfortunate, but I'm not giving up yet! I might try one more time to reach out after the new year, and I still have one potential site near home that I might be able to access once deer hunting season has passed, though it seems to be mostly a conglomerate based off of geological reports, so there may not be much. I'm also heavily considering trying out kayaking, as there may be river exposures as well. I did, however, achieve one goal I was aiming for with local Triassic fossils, in a roundabout way. A fellow club member gave away some of her old Otozamites specimens from the Pekin Formation, so I was able to give it to the local historical museum for their collection. However, I did find a different kind of Triassic spot, which is the one I hit on my return trip! The Triassic spot I have been able to visit, which is from the Cow Branch Formation, is just a small exposure of brown to black shale off of a road in the northern part of the state. It isn't very big, and so far I haven't found much of anything specific, just a lot of little "somethings". It could just be odd minerals, but I think some of it could be random loose plant remains. However, the first one pictured I have I've been told by several people may be fish scales, so it's probably the best contender yet. The rest are just examples of the random little "somethings" I've found in the shale. Now on to the Waccamaw Winnings; I joined a few friends and some new acquaintances on a trip to a former pit in the southeastern part of the state only a week after the first event. It's a spot I've previously been to back in the spring, but like most first time trips I was plagued with stomach issues and was mostly getting familiar with the site's contents. And much like other trips, it seems like the second time is the charm! I found a lot of really cool things, including my third North Carolina Echinoid species. The whole cleanup took almost two weeks, which took a lot of my free time up (and is also why sharing the highlights has taken so long). Unlike my previous trips, I've better identified a lot of the finds from this site, in part due to a book that was recently published, the Photographic Atlas of Waccamaw Formation Mollusca by Timothy David Campbell. I picked it up from him at our fossil even in Hickory, NC, and It's been a really neat little guide for the things you can find in the formation, as far as mollusks go. Here are some of the specimens I had after cleaning, where I left them to dry overnight and sort the next day. There are microfossils in two of the compartments of this box. Here are some assorted microfossils in a different box, while I was trying to sort them. These are super fragile, and I have to be careful how I pick them up with the tweezers to avoid crushing them. There are bivalves, gastropods, barnacles, bryozoan colonies formed around grains of sand, crab dactyls, echinoid spines, and a couple of scaphopods. Here are some bagged microfossil bivalves and gastropods. I currently don't have them sorted down to genus / species, but I'm hoping one day I'll find the time to do it. They can get quite small, and I've found some that were around .635 to 1.27 mm (.025 to .05 inches) in size. Now onto some specific finds. The first specific things I have are the Lirophora varicosa athleta, also known as Imperial Venus clams. I really enjoy the variable ridges on these clams, and in a way they remind me of Ecphora in regards to their structure. These are exceptionally plentiful in the site we were at, and I ended up snagging perhaps a few too many specimens, haha. I did have a good reason for, which I'll get to later. Most are loose valves, but I did find a few nice intact specimens as well. I had more that I didn't photograph, but this is a good representation of the ones I did collect. These little shells can hold a surprising amount of microfossils to boot! I did also find an unusual, pathological specimen, with some unusual curvature to the valve, and flattened ridges. Onto another plentiful bivalve in the site, Glycymeris americana, also known as the American Bittersweet. These are very fun to collect, because they have the potential to contain a lot of microfossils inside their shells if they are covered in the dirty matrix, especially the larger ones. These are found intact as well occasionally. Now for an unusual one, this one has small little bumps all over the interior surface. I'm not sure if it's some sort of pathology, a bunch of blisters, or something else. However, this particular specimen had something neat inside the matrix that once filled it; a small shark tooth! These are fairly uncommon in the formation, so it was a nice surprise to find while cleaning it out. This was not the first shark tooth I found, though. I found this slightly larger tooth in the dirt while I was hunting the site, as well as this fish skull of unknown species. Unfortunately, the skull was once more intact and pristine, but some unfortunate accidents while showing it off to relatives and transporting it caused it to fracture into four pieces. I was able to reform it with three, but the last one was permanently lost. I believe both shark teeth are from a Mako, but I'm still not the best at identifying them. One friend managed to find a sizable shark vertebrae in the site as well. While on the topic of surprise finds, arguably my best find and the biggest surprise was my first "whole" echinoid of the formation, and my third North Carolina species found! This Mellita caroliniana was hiding inside of a matrix-filled Dinocardium robustum also known as the Atlantic Giant Cockle. I had to have the shark-vetrebra friend help me retrieve this shell, as it was up on the side of a dirt wall I couldn't quite alone fully reach. I was jumping with joy when I discovered this thing hiding inside it! It was a bit of a good twist of fate as well that I had to change my cleaning method for this trip as well; we only have well water where I live and we were in severe drought conditions, so I was forced to clean my specimens with a spray bottle rather than a water hose (which is also why it took so long). I think if I had been using a hose it would have destroyed the specimen. The aboral surface is crushed in and the petaloids are a little fractured due to this, but I still think it's a great specimen! It's currently sitting in a cabinet until I can get the wisdom of my fellow fossil club friends on how to best preserve it with consolidant, as I'm worried it'll fall apart if I'm not careful. It's likely going to stay in this cockle as well, which I think makes for a good pairing, as well as a demonstration as to how things get buried together in the formation. I did find what I believe was an intact microfossil echinoid as well, likely a juvenile Mellita. However, I unfortunately have nothing to go off of other than my words, as it tragically broke apart after it had dried and I attempted to move it to a coin case. It was probably less than 6mm (.236 inches) in diameter, and I believe I had misidentified it as one of the small bryozoan colonies at a first glance. Now that I know it's a possibility to find them, however, I'll try to be even gentle while cleaning out my finds, so I'm likely to stick with my current bottle method for the foreseeable future. On a brighter note, while it isn't a whole specimen I did find most of the oral surface of a Rhyncholampas sabistonensis. It's enough of a specimen that I feel good displaying it in a case! Back to mollusks now, the site has a fair number of these Arcinella cornuta, also known as Florida Spiny Jewelboxes. The ones from the Waccamaw Formation seem to have much larger spines. I was fortunate enough to find two intact specimens of these this trip! One did come apart while washing, but I kept the pair together after cleaning the microfossils out from inside. These shells hold a lot of microfossils as well, both on the interior and between spines. They often have barnacles as well, though, which fall off easily if care isn't taken while cleaning. Next are some of the Americoliva carolinensis gastropods I found. They're extremely similar to the living Oliva sayana, also know as the Lettered Olive. These seem to have the best odds of holding up the best out of all the different mollusks from the site, which suffer from deteriorating aragonite. Two very pristine and large specimens I found have quite a sheen to them still! They're both exactly 6.1 cm (2.401 inches) long. Here are some Chionopsis cribraria valves, an extinct species of Lady-In-Waiting clam, from the site. The slightly frilly ribbing on these makes them quite attractive, but the sediment that settles between them is often times difficult to remove without damaging them. Next is a scallop of the Argopecten genus, which contains the modern Atlantic Calico Scallop (Argopecten gibbus). There are several species present in the formation, and many have very subtle differences, so I'm having difficulty differentiating them. This one specimen is fairly interesting due to the outer layer being almost entirely covered with a type of bryozoan. Here are few slipper snails, mainly Crepidula fornicata, a common slipper snail from the formation. They're really "arched", and can curve strangely when they're larger. The upper right specimen is likely a different species, but I was having trouble identifying it. In addition to the standard slipper snails, I found a Crepidula plana (on the right), which is a flat slipper snail, and two Bostrycapulus aculeatus (on the left), a type of spiny slipper snail. I have a soft spot for slipper snails, as an older gentleman at the beach gave me some really cool modern specimens and explained to me what they were when I was younger. Here were two neat oysters I have yet to identify. One has a lot of different coral growths all over the outer surface. These are a whole bunch of intact Plicatula marginata, a type of Kitten's Paw Clam. Out of all the intact bivalves in the site, these are by far the most common, and they tend to have a lot of "personality". I've seen some with some crazy ridge variation, and I've seen some with only one or two large ridges (Timothy Cambell had a really interesting one that was basically one giant "U" Shape) Here is a Gemophos basidentatus, an extinct Cantharus snail. This is probably one of the larger ones I've found, most of the ones I've found are microfossils. Some more interesting gastropods. The top two are Ilyanassa irrorata (Extinct nassa mud snails), the bottom Left is a Cinctura evergladesensis (An extinct banded tulip snail), and the bottom right is a Ilyanassa scalaspira (A larger, extinct nassa mud snail with some cool ridges). Some small predatory gastropods. From Left to right: Strictispira ? acurugata (An extinct turrid snail), Turritella virginica (An extinct turrited snail), Turritella beaufortensis (Another extinct turreted snail), a pathological Turritella beaufortensis with an unusual curve, Neoterebra dislocata (Eastern Auger Snail), Neoterebra protexta (Fine-ribbed auger snail), and another Neoterebra dislocata. Here are two Neverita duplicata (Shark eye moon snails). These can sometimes be really well preserved as well, but in other cases they're some of the most deteriorated mollusks. This is a Naticarius plicatella, an extinct species of moon snail with an interesting spiral groove pattern. I, for the life of me, cannot nail down the murexes very well for some reason! The bottom three are members of the Urosalpinx genus (All three may be Urosalpinx miamiensis?), the top right is a Eupleura caudata, and the top left is currently unknown. Several whelk and other gastropod species from the site. The top row are all Busycon contrarium contrarium (A left hand, or sinistral, whelk), middle left is a Busycotypus amoenus (A knobby, or nodose, whelk), middle right is a Heilprinia carolinensis (An extinct gastropod related to the tulip and spindle snails), the bottom left is a Fulguropsis floridana (A type of whelk with a recessed canal on the top spiral), and the bottom right is a Ficus papyratia (A fig snail) with a broken tail. And finally, the cone snails. The top one in the first picture might be a Conus anabathrum, but the rest are some species of Conasprella, (Mostly Conasprella oniscus?). These are also some gastropods that have been particularly tricky for me to differentiate. However, the two in the second picture are a couple of rarer Conasprella adversaria, which are a species of left hand, or sinistral, cone snails. Their left hand morphology makes them easy to identify, and I'm heard someone say that they can get quite large at times. I picked up a lot of the cone snails, too, but most of them went unpictured. And just as a fun bonus, while we were cleaning up and getting ready to depart I discovered this interesting shell under a sheet of metal! It's not a fossil, but rather a shell from a Euglandina rosea snail, also known as the Rosy Wolfsnail or the Cannibal Snail. These land snails are native to our forests, but they're a particularly nasty invasive species elsewhere, especially in Hawaii, where they've wiped out at least eight native species of gastropod. It's probably the largest land snail I've seen myself around here! And with that the Waccamaw trip is all wrapped up. As I said before, the cleanup took nearly two weeks, and was quite exhausting, but absolutely worth it. As for the hundreds of spare Imperial Venus valves and dozens of other species, I took a look back through all of my recent finds and my finds from April, and have separated out the specimens I wanted to hold on to. The rest have been donated to the Aurora Fossil Museum in Aurora, NC, where they'll hopefully find some good uses for them! It helps keep my collection at reasonable quantities, while also helping them out and hopefully giving others the opportunity to obtain some things they wouldn't normally be able to easily find. It also gave me a good excuse to spend the day relaxing while digging in the pits there, which contain a variety of cool fossils from many different formations, including the Yorktown Formation. I'm definitely a invertebrate kind of guy, but I like a good shark tooth hunt once in a while too! These were some of the more interesting finds I had that day, including an unidentified cone snail, two nice Hemipristis serra upper teeth, and a broken Otodus chubutensis tooth measuring about 5.969 cm (2.35 inches) long. And that's all my adventures I've had the past month! I still have one trip left planned for this year, which is combination return to the Waccamaw site, as well as a trip out to Holden Beach for one last go at the Hardouinia mortonis echinoids this year. Beyond that, I think I'll spend the rest of the holidays at home, spending time with family and working on some important projects. I might check out the one Triassic spot if the gentleman gives me permission, since it's only a short drive away, but I don't know if I'll go on any more "long trip" hunts until closer to the Spring. There are also some club friends from central and western North Carolina that may want to check out some different spots this winter, whom I may make an exception and try to tag along with, but there's nothing solid planned yet. I do have one potential beach trip that I really want to try come February depending on work holidays and the weather as well, but the focus would be on finding modern echinoids, particularly the elusive Rhynobrissus cuneus.
  10. My annual excursion to visit my family which migrated to Kentucky years ago took place at the end of October into November, lasting two weeks. Of course, the planned trip took me in the vicinity of some excellent fossil bearing sediments and though quality time with family was the primary purpose, I did hope to add to my collection. All of the spots I visited were ones I've been to before; however, the first stop was a new one for me- Paulding, well known and documented on the Forum for its Middle Devonian marine fauna. I drove from the suburbs of New York City for almost eleven hours, raining most of the way, arriving at and spending the night at a hotel in Defiance, Ohio. Paulding was about fifteen minutes away. Drove there the following morning, It was a brisk forty degrees, mostly cloudy, but sunny at times. A TFF member I was supposed to hook up with there unfortunately had to bail last minute. A nearby quarry which exposes the famed Devonian Silica Shale had, years ago, stopped allowing collectors to hunt there. There was a big outcry and the quarry set up a fossil park dumping fossiliferous rock onto a property they owned which the public were free to collect from. Much of it is now overgrown and much of the rock has been reduced to gravel. However, there are still many fossiliferous chunks out there if one is willing to look.
  11. Jeffrey P

    Western Adventure Part 6

    One week fossil collecting trip out west, my sixth time in the past six years. Flew into Denver. Rented a car and headed down to Castle Rock where I spent the night at a motel. Next day drove up to Florissant Fossil Quarry. It was Wednesday and they're normally closed during the week in September, but I made special arrangements for a few hours visit. Compared to my two previous visits there, didn't do as well. The other times, I was there for the whole day, this time was just for three hours, and they had had a considerable amount of rain recently and so the shale was more crumbly and more difficult to split. Here are some of my finds. Plants:
  12. Andúril Flame of the West

    Chronicles in the Maastrichtian

    It has been quite a while since I have written a trip report and I thought I'd share the results of some of my most recent fossiling adventures. Before diving into the fossils, this past weekend I had the opportunity to enjoy the beautiful fall foliage of the east coast. The Appalachians, usually quite unassuming hills that are nothing near the grandeur of the mountains to the north and west, were quite a sight to behold. The fall foliage was clearly quite popular, as I did not expect the entrance to Shenandoah National Park to be quite as backed up as it was. I made it up to the overlook as the sun was setting, as it is said that the colors are most impressive under the light of the westering sun. Unfortunately, the sun was mostly obscured by clouds, but the views were breathtaking nonetheless. Now, for what I am sure everyone has come here to see: the fossils! Over the past couple of months, I have acquired a renewed interest in the fossils of the Maastrichtian Severn formation of Maryland. As any who are familiar with this formation know, it is quite elusive and its most famous exposures were temporary construction sites in decades past. Several weeks ago, I visited a small creek that I had heard exposed the fossiliferous shell layer of the Severn. Initially, exploration of the creek did not seem promising and I only managed to locate only one poor exposure of the Severn at creek level. After some searching and many shell fragments later, I was rewarded with two relatively complete specimens: Crassatella vadosa Cyprimeria alta Although the yields had not been high, I was quite satisfied with these specimens due to the relative rarity of sites containing original-shell mollusks. A huge thanks to @historianmichael for identifying these specimens and for the preparation tips (unfortunately the shells have begun to crack but I am hoping they may remain salvageable). Inspired by my recent success and hoping for some vertebrate remains, I headed out to a new site. After taking quite a circuitous route through some woods and tall grass I made it to the exposure. The invertebrate fauna at this locality was not incredibly diverse, consisting almost wholly of the oyster Exogyra costata. A handful of Exogyra costata A more complete specimen of Exogyra costata with both valves intact. After encountering these first few Exogyra, I was left with a few hours to devote to searching for vertebrate remains. With my lack of experience with these fossils and their notoriously poor preservation, I only managed to recover a small selection of possible fragments. The entire haul of possible vertebrate remains. If any members have any insight on whether these are identifiable vertebrate remains, it would be greatly appreciated . Below are isolated photographs of some of the more intriguing finds of the day. This fragment bears some resemblance to a partial mosasaur tooth. However, it may be too fragmentary to assign a confident ID. Scapanorhynchus texanus I cannot say what this is, though I am hopeful that it might be bone. I believe that mosasaur and turtle remains can be found at this site. I am very grateful for any opinions. With the weather cooling I do not anticipate that I will be able to get out as often as I would like, but I hope to make a few more forays into the Severn before the year's end. Thanks for taking a look and happy hunting!
  13. Fossilcam

    Help me identify 1

    Help I can't figure out what this is or what matrix it formed in?
  14. From the album: Middle Devonian

    Grammysioidea arcuata Anomalodesmata Bivalve 1 and 1/2 inches long Middle Devonian Moscow Formation Windom Shale Hamilton Group Deep Springs Road Quarry Earlville, N.Y.
  15. From the album: Middle Devonian

    Actinodesma erectum Pteriomorph Bivalve 2 inches long Middle Devonian Moscow Formation Windom Shale Hamilton Group Deep Springs Road Quarry Earlville, N.Y.
  16. From the album: Middle Devonian

    Pseudoaviculopecten princeps Pteriomorph Bivalve 2 inches wide Middle Devonian Moscow Formation Windom Shale Hamilton Group Deep Springs Road Quarry Earlville, N.Y.
  17. From the album: Tertiary

    Chesapecten middlesexensis Late Miocene Eastover Formation Cobham Member Virginia A generous gift from HistorianMichael
  18. Jeffrey P

    Chesapecten from Virginia

    From the album: Tertiary

    Chesapecten jeffersonius Scallop Late Miocene=Pliocene Yorktown Formation Virginia A generous gift from HistorianMichael
  19. From the album: Cretaceous

    Cyprimeria alta Verneridae Bivalve Upper Cretaceous Severn Formation Monmouth Group Brightseat, MD. a generous gift from HistorianMichael
  20. From the album: Middle Devonian

    Unidentified Bivalve Internal Mold Middle Devonian Amherstburg Formation Detroit River Group Formosa Reef Formosa, Ontario A generous gift from Kane
  21. From the album: Middle Devonian

    Unidentified Bivalve Internal Molds Middle Devonian Amherstburg Formation Detroit River Group Formosa Reef Formosa, Ontario The one on the right is a generous gift from Kane
  22. Hello everyone, it's been a while since I've been a while since I've been out to collect fossils but yesterday I finally got to enjoy some time collecting and had some interesting finds I thought I'd share. Yesterday morning I got to meet up with @Jeffrey P who showed me his vast and beautiful collection of fossils before we went to collect two locations nearby in Eastern NY. The first location we visited was the Glenerie Limestone, a very interesting location due to the diversity of organisms found there and the unique preservation which results in many silicified shells a number of which are completely out of matrix. This was my second time collecting at this location and as it had just been snowing and everything melted, there was a lot of nice freshly washed out material to pick through. By far the most abundant fossils here are brachiopods and of those, the most common is probably Leptocoelia flabellites, I collected a few of these and some appear on the larger matrix pieces with other fossils but they're really common so only a few were kept: Meristella sp. are also pretty abundant, I picked up a few that I thought had nicer preservation, or were complete as those are not as common at this site These are the shells of two spiriferid, I collected a number of these last time, the most common ones are Acrospirifer sp. and Howella sp. I believe but I do not know how to differentiate between the two This piece of matrix had some particularly nice spiriferids, one was pretty big for the site and another on the side of the piece has really nice preservation of some of the finse structure on the outside of the shell. I also found a Rensselaeria sp. Terebtatulid brachiopod, my second from the location, this one has more of it preserved although it is quite distorted and with little of the shell material but I still kept it as I like these Devonian Terebtatulids and they are not as common. Here's a tiny complete brachiopods I picked up, not sure about the ID yet, the detail preserved on such a small shell is actually pretty nice but the camera doesn't show it that well. Two of the brachiopods found appear to be inarticulate brachiopods, although I'm not sure if it's possible to put an ID to either of them, the first is preserved as an impression, I did look at some of the internal anatomy of lower Devonian inarticulate brachiopods and this does look a lot like Craniops sp. but I don't know if I could call it that without further evidence The other has some shell material but it's small and not completely exposed so I am not sure if it can be identified or even if it is an inarticulate brachiopod And some miscellaneous brachiopods I haven't yet Identified: Here's another item that confused me, it appears to be a brachiopod from the overall shape, as it is flat on one side and is in the shape of a semicircle, but if it is a brachiopod it has some kind of unusual epibiont on it with an unusual structure unlike anything else I've seen, does anyone know what this may be? Other than brachiopods, gastropods are also fairly abundant at the site, last time I was here I found a couple but nothing too special. This time, I don't know if it was the freshly washed out material, a better pattern recognition or just pure luck I found a lot, of different sizes and different quality. I was very happy to find these they're really interesting and I love the way they are preserved here, here is most of them: most of not all of them are Platystoma sp. I believe. And finally, I also found a coral, the first time I was at the site I found a tabulate coral which @Jeffrey P told me is the first he'd seen ever from this site, and this time I found a solitary rugose coral. Unfortunately it is cracked as it was laying on the surface, exposed to the elements but I was able to safely get it home and I'm currently trying to stabilize it with some glue, hopefully it will remain intact. I believe it might belong to the species Enterolasma strictum. After Glenerie we stopped at a site not far away which was in the Middle Devonian, lower Hamilton Group, part of the Marcellus Shale, also a very interesting site which was new to me, and we had some nice finds there too which I will post later once I get them photographed. Thanks for looking! Misha
  23. This trip was planned for last weekend but my wife was scheduled to fly home and the kiddos were working or busy so I get the pleasure of picking her up. The foul weather extended the flight plans from mid morning to 5 pm. I could have had my cake and eaten it too. Oh well, I picked the better choice . So this morning I got up at 5 AM, grabbed my gear and nutritive goodies and hit the road. South by South East to Price, UT- 129 miles/207 km from home. A beautiful day was forecast, but I was quite surprised at the temperature drop as I went over Solider Summit pass. 32F read the dash light. Enough about the weather...it did indeed bloom into a beautiful late summer day. Blue skies, 80F. I flubbed a few turns onto BLM land and had to U-turn it back 2 miles to get to one of my Google Maps pinned favorites. In reality, it wouldn't have made a difference. I checked the map with my destination pins and one fav was 22 miles from the first one and the last one was 50 miles from the first. It looks way smaller online than in reality. duhh! My favorite new Spanish word is "Cuesta" . pronounced coo-esta. Wiki says-A cuesta (from Spanish cuesta "slope") is a hill or ridge with a gentle slope on one side, and a steep slope on the other. To me it looks like a perfect surfing wave, nice face in the front and lot of water behind it to power it along. Here's one in the distance. Imagine 50 miles of these beautiful land waves spitting out lovely fossil filled concretions right down the the face of the wave. Kinda like the shores of England. You can see the two lines. It's the cuesta in the distance, not the gully wash below my car on the left foreground. I parked there and hiked down the gully across the wash keeping an eye on the banks and wash debris. Nothing. Then about 200 meters to the base of the closest cuesta for some scouting. That took about Five Minutes. First brown concretion I came upon at the cuesta base got a taste of hammer. Bam! Fossil Bomb! Bivalves, Gastropods and my target fossil Ammonites! Double bivalve is number one find of the day. Same concretion rewards me with my first ammo. The two species reputed to be in these concretions and stratigraphy are prionocyclus hyatti and prionocyclus wyomingensis. This one is the former in robust form. I actually kissed this one I was so stoked. lol. After that I started scouting for concretions and well...let's just say there is no shortage. I then surveyed the immediate landscape and decided to go south first to walk the base and ridge of this rather short cuesta and try to determine the best source. After too long of a hike I found the distribution to about the same. So instead of north I hiked up the face of the slope and checked out the layers. The top had no particular showing of concretions eroding out so that put them coming out a little lower down. The top had shale or sandstone looking material all over the edge. Nothing was showing so I flipped a few of the larger layered slabs. Sure enough the underside had something completely different. So please throw in your best ID names at will. There was a shaley patch on top of these things like smashed potato chips/crisps which brushed off easily revealing the forest of something unfamiliar to me. Crinoids? maybe, IDK. A marine coral? maybe, IDK. Something else? Well I should do my homework. The slab panel and a closeup of the left section. Any ideas? Or expert ID? Cretaceous is the period. Here's the result of one concretion revealing its innards. At least 5 species. And a little friend/distraction. Bottom of the card. Closeup of previous concretion contents. The concretions were sometimes extremely crumbly with most every fossil breaking with the exception mostly with the bivalves. Ammos broke about the same ratio as the gastropods. A small pile of concretions to break open. There were a few other side adventures while scouting the cuesta but I'll end with the very last concretion I struck open. It made my day! One hit on the widest circumference. CRACK! It split open just as you see it. To wind up the commentary, I had Pete and Repeat in the boat with me again. Just like my second trip to Kemmerer, WY, fossil quarry. If you're not familiar with Pete and Repeat, it's a simple annoying joke. I say: Pete and Repeat were in a boat, Pete fell overboard. Who was left? You say: Repeat. I say: Pete and Repeat were in a boat, Pete fell overboard. Who was left? You: either say Repeat again and I repeat the joke or you get it and roll your eyes. Connect the joke to my two fossil hunting trips. Higher altitude, warming sun, dehydration, too much fossil enthusiasm = I gas out by 1:30 PM and running on stubborn and will power, I make it back to the car. Same this trip as the 2nd Kemmerer trip. Except there was an audience at Kemmerer. Just me and lizards this trip. My intention was to fill a bucket or milk crate with fossils; reality-a partial fill. Left the mystery marine fossil above my base camp. Will need to go back with cooler weather and carrying more H2O with electrolytes and not one Diet Dew with Pineapple juice mixed to carry to the digging site...NOT in the vehicle which may as well had been on Mars. I had 3 gallons of ice water, two Capri Suns, a 16 oz water bottle and another Diet Dew or three for the ride home. Plus lunch. Barely made it to the vehicle with a couple stops to cover the 300 yards. Two pounds lighter than yesterday. More pics if interested. PS -Roger (Ludwigia) pack your bags, book a flight. This destination is at 6,000'ASL, flat ground for the most part, multiple trips to the vehicle with the finds, free transportation from the airport & fossil site plus room and board! I'll be going back a number of times this season and post winter snow melt which is usually minimal down south in Utah. The name of the area is Mounds Reef if anyone is curious about it. Not the specific hunting sites, just a big chunk of desert real estate. Approx. 100 sq miles of not much but cuestas, yeah!
  24. From the album: Cretaceous

    Agerostrea nasuta Oysters Specimen on right- 1 and 5/16 inches Upper Cretaceous Severn Formation Monmouth Group Prince George's CO., MD. A gift from HistorianMichael
  25. Jeffrey P

    Bivalve from the Severn Formation, MD.

    From the album: Cretaceous

    Cuneolus tippana Bivalve Specimen on the left 1 and a 1/2 inches long Upper Cretaceous Severn Formation Monmouth Group Prince George's CO., MD. A gift from HistorianMichael
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