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Hello! I recently got a new fossil, which is a plate with 2 Ceraurus specimens. I believe one is a Ceraurus pleurexanthemus and the other is a Ceraurus webbi. That would be good to have validated here. But moreso, I'm wondering what the round thing is on the plate. It is very round, but has a texture on it that seems organic. I've included pictures and would love to hear anyone's thoughts on what it may be. Thanks!

Hi all! I’ve got this heavily weathered Ceraurus, and I’m trying to figure out if it’s best to leave the critter in the rugged natural state or if more of him might be buried: any pointers on determining this? Trying to think twice and dremel once to avoid mistakes… Thanks!

As promised here is another of the specimens that I prepared that will be included in the new "Dawn of Life" gallery at the ROM. Not sure it belongs in the Preparation topic as I only have the single picture. Moderator feel free to move. Those that know me realize that I hate taking pictures. There are occasions when you get to work on a specimen that you absolutely do not want to return at the end of preparation. That was certainly the case with this one. Of all the specimens I have ever prepared for someone else, this plate is probably the one that I most wanted to keep for my own collection. This is natures art at its finest. This is in my opinion a stunning associated pair of trilobites a large Gabriceraurus hirsuitus (synomynous with G. dentatus) associated with a much smaller Ceraurus globulobatus. Hopefully a long awaited paper will be coming clarifying the naming of all these cheirids. This specimen is the plesiotype for the species and is catalogued as ROM specimen 46105. This specimen was selected to be featured in the new permanent "Dawn of Life" gallery at The ROM opening late 2021 (Covid permitting). Thank you Dr. JB Caron for permission to share. This specimen was originally described in a paper by William Hessin back in 1988 and was collected Bill at Brechin Quarry in the 1980's Truth in advertising. I was asked to do a repreparation and minor repairs to the specimen prior to public display in the gallery. Some preparation had been performed back in the 80's. I spent approximately 20 hours on this specimen. This work was done probono and was my pleasure and privilege to have been involved. It was done exclusively under an Olympus SZ30 stereo microscope using a COMCO MB1000 air abrasion unit using only sub 40 micron baking soda. All work was performed with .015 and .010 nozzles at under 10 PSI. (Hence why it took 20 hours). A small amount of scribe work was performed using a Pferd MST31 with fine styl;us and a Paleotools microjack-2. Some Minor repairs were completed using Bob Smith Industries Instacure super thin cyanoacrylate and Milliput super fine white 2 part putty. Unfortunately I only took a single picture . So here it is for your viewing pleasure. Definitely one of my favorites. Yes they are different species but as I was prepping this one I kept thinking of it as "Madonna and Child" So here here is what I refer to as "Madonna and Child" Please feel free to ask questions or you can PM me directly

Finally I can share an incredible piece with you all!!!!!!!! I have been very fortunate to be able to do invertebrate fossil preparation for The Royal Ontario Museum (The ROM). I have recently been given permission to share pictures of some of the work that I have done for them. Thank you Dr. J.B. Caron. In the coming weeks I will share some pictures of other pieces I did for them. In total I prepared about 12 pieces for them out of their collection and I donated 7 pieces for the new gallery. In case you are not already aware they will be opening a major new fossil gallery "The Dawn of Life" later this year. Here is a major piece that I did for them last year. The piece is quite stunning in person , my photography does it no justice. You will be able to see it in person in the new gallery. There are over 60 Leviceraurus mammilloides on the plate. As well as a few other species of crinoid and trilobite. To spare you all the waiting here is the finished piece The piece was prepared over a 12 month period and required around 200 hours to prepare. It was prepared under a Olympus zoom microscope using the following air scribes (CP9361, ARO, Pferd MST-31, Paleotools Microjac 2) The air abrasion was performed with a Comco MB1000 using baking soda and dolomite in the 40 micron range and mostly 20 to 30 PSI. Since this was a piece of scientific importance (there may be a new species on here and it potentially shows some sexual dimorphism ) all associations were left on the plate. If a brachiopod was covering a trilobite it was not removed. Partial trilos were not removed to exposed complete ones below it. Dr. Caron was quite specific in what he wanted in the way the specimen was prepared. There are probably more trilos that have not been exposed and these may be discovered in the future by Xray. At 200 hours I quit searching for more as the plate had nice aesthetics and the museum needed it to do professional photography and measuring for the display. This picture is as it was found in the field back in 2019 by David A. who is a member here on the fossil forum. The fossil was found in an Ordovician quarry (St. Mary's Cement) that allows a very limited number of qualified collectors in a few times per year. The slab as found required 4 people to bring it down the side of a very large blast pile using a blanket. It was estimated that the slab weighed about 300 pounds. Here I am u The 2nd and 3rd pictures are me cutting and thinning the slab using a checkerboard technique done with a diamond rock saw. This got the piece to a transport weight of about 60 pounds. The rest of the pictures are a sequence leading up to the finished piece which weighs about 50 pounds and was the first picture shown in this post. If you have any questions please feel free to ask or send me a private message if you prefer. The piece in my basement before any preparation. Not so pretty at this point in its life.... The piece at 1 hour The final shot here was with about 20 hours to go

Yesterday my dad and I went to a local trout stream for a couple hours just to get out of the house. We did very well with the trout, I got 4 brookies and a brown and he got 7 brookies. On the way back to the car I noticed a small exposure along the side of the creek and took a few minutes to check it out. I immediately saw evidence of trilobites so I dug around some more and I found some nice stuff, including 3 new species for me. The rock is Middle Ordovician Trenton Group and It seems like the Sugar River Limestone. I will be putting photos on here throughout the day when I get time to photograph my finds Enjoy!!

In the Ordovician, Trenton Limestones of Ontario Canada and New York, there are many species of Ceraurus that have been described. Yet, more are found in Canada than in New York. This is most likely due to a lot more collecting in Ontario and shallower environment in Ontario verses deeper water in New York. Some of the related genera like Bufoceraurus and Leviceraurus in Ontario have not been found in NY. It was exciting for me to find this cluster of Ceraurus in New York because they appear to be the same species of C. plattinensis that have been described from Ontario. However, the Ontario/NY C. plattinensis are different than the C. plattinensis that comes from the Decorah in Missouri. They are being looked at and will be described as a new species and deposited in the New York State Museum.

What’s a fair trade for these

With the mild December weather, I decided to squeeze in one more collecting trip before the end of the year. I contacted a few friends and we hopped in the car and made a six hour trek from the Chicagoland area down to Northern Kentucky. We decided to collect a huge roadcut outside of Maysville Kentucky. The cut is well known to collectors of Cincinnatian aged fossils. Many beautiful crinoids, edrioasteroids and other rare Ordovician fauna have been found at this site. The cut is enormous and is quite overwhelming to a first time collector. I have not done much collecting in the Cincinnatian but had had a chance to briefly visit this site once before and it looked promising. The site cuts through several formations of the Cincinnatian. From bottom to top, it exposes the Kope, Fairview and Bellevue Formations. My main goal was to hopefully find a rare edrioasteroid. We initially concentrated on the upper layers in the Bellevue. We had already had some luck earlier in the day with echinoderms. We had stopped at a smaller cut on our way to the site that exposed the Kope Formation. My friend found 2 nice slabs with well preserved examples of the Crinoid Ectenocaris with stems and calyx’s preserved. Unfortunately, we did not have much luck locating any Edrioasteroids. I decided to head down the cut and do a little prospecting in the Fairview. Almost immediately, I stumbled upon my best find ever in the Cincinnatian! I was looking at pieces of shale when I was stunned to see a slab covered in trilobites! For those who have not collected in the Cincinnatian, finding any trilobites other then Flexicalymene and Isotelus is a rare occurrence. A collector is likely to only find isolated parts of some of the rarer types. The trilobites that you do find are normally individuals and likely enrolled. After closer inspection, I was amazed to see that the trilobites that were preserved on this slab appeared to be examples of Ceraurus milleranus! All appear to be prone and some are even piled on top of each other. Finding one complete Ceraurus in the Cincinnatian would be considered an amazing and very rare find. In all, we collected over twenty in various stages of growth ranging from a tiny 1/4 inch example to one nearly two inches in length. The slabs need to be cleaned and prepped but I am attaching a picture of one of the unfinished pieces. I will add more pictures to this post once everything is prepped. We found some other nice fossils that day that I will post as well.

Five years ago today, we lost a beloved friend of the Fossil Forum, Caleb Scheer. It was a sad day when his father, Al, "Roadcut1", informed the Forum that he died. Caleb was very knowledgeable in the Ordovician trilobites of the Midwest. He took this knowledge to create the website "Midwest Paleo" that illustrates some exquisite trilobites from the Ordovician in the Midwest. On the Forum he would make over a thousand posts, making comments, helping identify fossils and posting pictures of the fossils he collected, especially trilobites. His avatar is a beautiful coiled Cybeloides iowensis he collected from the Maquoketa formation. Last year after MAPS, I visited Al to do some field work collecting Ordovician trilobites. While there, we visited the cemetery where Caleb is. On his head stone, the family had the image of a Ceraurus trilobite put on it. An appropriate way to remember his love of trilobites. I am currently working with two others on the revision of Ceraurus. We will be honoring Caleb by describing and naming a new species of Ceraurus after him that he collected from the Mifflin Member of the Platteville Formation.

My story will be a bit(could be too much) long, so I put this report separately from @Kane's report. I'm not sure I can do this or not 'cause this is my first time to write same topic from others'. If I should not do this, I apologize administrator for making bothersome Before I start my story, I convey my profound and huge gratitude to @crinus for taking me quarries(these travels were my very first visiting to not only quarries, but also Ontario's fossil site!) and giving a lot of nice fossils to me what he found, and to @Northern Sharks for giving a nice specimen to me what he found as well from Brechin quarry and organizing Bowmanville journey(I didn't know that until seeing from @Kane's report. I'm not sure that you set the all plans), and to @Malcolmt for giving a complete crinoid to me, which is my first complete crinoid possessing arms and stems, and finally to everyone that I've met on this travel for welcoming me *Plus - My report will be incomplete 'cause I don't know that much about Ontario's geological information and some species' scientific names. So, I'll appreciate greatly if you guys tell me about right information and help me to correct it I revised this post a loooot of times 'cause I realized that it was not report, but a proper diary(Too Much Information.. and still, it's like a diary..) Well.. Now then, I'll begin my long story with some pictures though I couldn't make to take that many pictures of quarries and people. As for the Brechin quarry, I forgot to take my phone and there was no time to take DSLR out from my bag. And as for the Bowmanville quarry, I was so concentrating to find fossils that I forgot to take pictures *Date : Oct.21&22.2017 *Location : Brechin quarry & Bowmanville quarry *Records of formation : Brechin quarry - D -----> Upper Verulam Formation(There was a "cluster" of fauna that I think it's different from below one. Color was bright grey and somewhat yellowish) DD -----> Middle Verulam Formation(Bluish and grey rocks with vurnerable condition) DDD -----> Lower Verulam Formation(Brown and grey rocks) DDDD -----> Upper Bobcaygeon Formation(Alternates between sublithogenic and medium calcarenitic limestone, but also includes some brown lithographic limestone and bluish fine-grained limestone in minor thicknesses)[*] [Buried under the ground] Middle Bobcaygeon Formation(Grey and brown, very fine grained to sublithogenic, sparsely fossiliferous limestone, with some fine-grained limestone in the upper part)[*] [Buried under the ground] Lower Bobcaygeon Formation(Brownish grey, fine- and medium-grained limestone)[*] (Reference - [*] Bobcaygeon formation - Weblex Canada. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://weblex.nrcan.gc.ca/html/001000/GSCC00053001579.html @Northern Sharks informed me! Thank you! ) Bowmanville quarry - D -----> Blue Mountain Formation (I couldn't get there.) DD Upper Lindsay formation DDD Level 2 (?) DDDD Level 3(?) - Lower Lindsay formation (Below as well. The quarry was so biiiiiig!!) - - *Geological Age - Middle Ordovician These all rocks are what I took. Maybe I took a lot of fossils even if it is only a small part of trilobites. I just so excited that I found Ontario's trilobites directly, not through internet store or pictures! Well.. Now I'm worried the weight.. Could I take these whole fossils?... I should have considered about it, not just collect unnecessary things by my instinct. It was not a clever move.. That crinoid(at 11 O'clock-wise) is not what I found these quarries. I found it from Scarbourough bluffers park before. To begin, the beginning of the day(Oct.21) I've met @crinus first at the very early morning of the day(For me. 'cause I'm not the early bird type). Actually, we met from Ebay. I won his two auction and I asked him that would you wait for me until I get to Canada in order to reduce shipping cost. Then, he offered me to go to quarries with him! Anyway, we arrived there around at 8:30 AM and there were 4 or more people had already arrived. I've met @Malcolmt and two other people(Sorry, I can't remember the name. My poor memory..) on near the greenish and bluish pond in the quarry. After handshaking, @crinus and I went to the piles of rocks, which is near the pond. We climbed up the piles of rocks and met @Northern Sharks on there. He found one complete Calyptaulax sp. and dropped it from his hand while we were greeting each other(yet, fortunately, the trilobite was alive with small crack on the pygidium(if my memory is correct)) After the greeting, @crinus and @Northern Sharks went to another place and I remained there, which was that @Northern Sharks found a trilobite, and looked for trilobites with hammering big rocks. I found a horn coral, which is Lambeophyllum profundum Conrad, 1843, the cephalon part of Ceraurus sp. , and a loooot of brachiopods and so on It came from lower Verulam formation. This one is Lambeophyllum profundum Conrad, 1843( @Northern Sharks and @FossilDAWG informed me! Thank you! ) Ceraurus globulobatus? I don't know the exact name of this specimen.. This one maybe came from the middle Verulam formation because of its color. Though I found this from the lower Verulam formation area.

I am often asked by people "Is this worth prepping?" The answer often is that it all depends. There is no guarantee that an unprepped specimen will be complete or that it will even prep out nicely. Some specimens are just to thin skinned or flakey or there really is little actual fossil there (mostly cast). It is my experience that prepping most common fossils will not increase the value of a specimen by as much as the prep will cost. If an average eldredgeops from New York costs about $20 to $50 to have prepped, depending on mostly the size, is it really worth prepping it when you can buy one for say $35 to $50 that is already prepped. A lot of the people I prep for it is the "first" of a species or the first prone trilobite that they ever found. So it is the associated value to them that makes the fossil worth prepping. I recently prepped a ceraurus for a US customer that was the first ceraurus he/she had found and was in their opinion the best trilobite they had ever found. Here is a picture of how it looked unprepped as I received it. It was obvious to me that there was a missing left genal spine and that the pygidial spines would likely not be complete. I relayed this information to the owner along with a preparation cost estimate of $60 to $100 US depending on how the bug responded to preparation and what if any repairs were needed. So the question is would I have paid that amount to have a bug prepped that would not be museum quality pristine when it was completed. For me the answer is likely not because I have quite a few pristine ceraurus already and although this one looked to be large and highly inflated it probably would not end up with a place in my display cabinet. So for me the answer was not that hard to come to. Equally for the owner of this bug it was an easy decision as it was in their opinion likely the best specimen if not the only specimen they were likely ever to find themselves as this one had taken countless years of collecting to find. Here is the bug about an hour into prepping. Very little scribe work was done as there was very little bulk matrix. All prep work is done under an Olympus zoom scope at 10 to 20x magnification. The initial air abrasion was done on a Comco MB1000 at 50 to 60 PSI using 40 micron dolomite with a .025 nozzle. An interesting and unexpected surprise was to find the hypostome still attached to the bug.. Given this knowledge in advance I would likely have prepped this for myself if it was mine as I do not have a ceraurus with hypostome intact. Now here is the almost completed bug. Final prep was done with a .015 nozzle at 30 PSI with 40 micron dolomite. A few small minor repairs can be seen in white which still need to be colour matched to the fossil . These were not burn throughs from over abrasion but actual defects in the fossil that I felt repairing would enhance the final aesthetics of the specimen. Remember this is going into a collection of an older amateur collecting enthusiast that has not found a lot of trilobites in their life. Note how highly inflated the specimen is By the way that is the pygidial spines from another ceraurus in front of the lip of the big bug. Now I am probably breaking a Peppers secret society rule by disclosing the cost for the prep. There is very little information on the internet regarding actual costs for having a fossil prepared. We seem to be like magicians not wanting to disclose our trade secrets. People are often surprised by how much it actually costs to get a fossil prepped. By the time you take electricity, supplies and wear and tear on the equipment (not to mention the original investment in the equipment) Preparators are lucky to get a minimum wage. My hats off to those who eke out a living this way. So what did it actually cost....... $80 US plus shipping ....... What s the bug worth.... well priceless to the owner. So here's the question.... would you have paid to have this bug prepped knowing what the costs was going to be.. Now gotta get back to matching the colour on those white spots.... Hate doing that worst part of the whole prep

@piranha @Kane Looking at this piece and want to make sure its real. Also I can't find anything online that confirms the listed Ceraurus Foulornia sp. Matrix measures 8 x 6 .5 inches. Trilobites measure 2 to 2.5 or more in length depending if you include spines. Width is close to that. Ordovician Morocco. I can get it for around $100 but don't want to spend the money if its fake and without confirming the species so I can find some reference prices. Thanks for any help with the ID and authenticity.

Well I went out collecting on Saturday which turned out to be a cold and windy day. Got there after a two hour drive at about 7:45. Was too cold overall with the windchill, ended up leaving about 2:30, usually stay till about 4:00. I was pretty disapponted on the day as I only brought 5 pieces of matrix home with me. My two regular collecting buddes had no better luck (perhaps even less) than I did. One of them even gave up at 11:00 which was very unusual. For me, a crappy disarcticulated isotelus about 2 inches long but it had a nice cephalon with perfect eyes. A starfish which now that I look at it under a bright light and scope is probably a species I have never found before and two cute little hash plates with a bunch of cephalons from Flexi and calyptalaux on them. What actually made my day now that I have finished prepping it is a split that I did that showed the outline of a trilobite. In the field under cloudy conditions I thought it was perhaps a flexicalymene (nothing to get excited about) although it was fairly large and prone. Here is what it looked like before any prep. You can see why I was not too excited, it is not much to look at. I should have recognized in the field that this was a ceraurus with some potential but being a dull cloudy day it went into the bucket with little thought as to it being anything good. Well at 10 minutes into the prep using dolomite <325 mesh abrasive in a Comco air abrasion unit at 30 PSI with a .018 nozzle it was obvious that it was a ceraurus and if the pygidium was there under all the matrix then probably a fairly nice one. Usually the ceraurus found at this location are not buried in the matrix and are very flaky. Here is the bug at 10 minutes of prep. Definitely starting to show some potential

Here is an extremely rare association of a pretty much complete Ceraurus globulobatus trilobite and a ventral partial amecystite echinoderm from the Verulam formation of the Brechin area in Ontario , Canada. Over the next month or so I will be taking a number of forum members and clubs to this area to hunt. Hopefully there will be some nice finds that we can share. This specimen was found by splitting rock at the end of April 2016. We tend to find the best specimens at this locality by splitting rock. the shaley limestone does not weather well once exposed to the elements.The preservation observed is quite typical of the ceraurus from this locality. The exoskeleton is extremely thin and flakey. The preparation was done mostly with very low pressure (8-10 PSI) 320 mesh dolomite . Prep time was about 5 hours over quite a number of days. Some dilute vinac was used to help consolidate the exoskeleton which was just screaming to want to flake off. This is the only time I have ever found an amecystite associated with a complete ceraurus. They are both rare finds in their own right.

My husband and I collected a lot of hash plates from a field trip near Cinncinnati, OH last summer. We finally got around to getting the mud off and examining our finds, and noticed a small, nearly complete trilobite cephalon that is neither Isotelus nor Flexicalymene, both of which are the more commonly-found trilobites for the area. This was Waynesville Formation, Ordovician era. Here's a photo throught the microscope. The cephalon is approximately 1 cm wide: My husband thinks this is a Ceraurus sp. I can see the resemblance to the pictures he found, but ours has two lobes on either side of the midline, while all of the pictures he found show three. I also think there are other subtle differences, so I'm hoping someone with more experience than us will weigh in. At the moment, what we have to go on for ID-ing the fossils we've found is the Dry Dredgers website list of what is known from this formation. There are several trilobites that can be found there, but Ceraurus is the closest to what we have. Is this Ceraurus, or have we found something that isn't on the Dry Dredgers' list?