Search the Community

Hi all, me again. Went on an expedition with my dad to show him what I do on my free time . Did some research into nearby formations and saw a promising one was in Gore VA. After casing the place in google maps dad and I arrived there at highway 50 we started on the road cut across from the meeting place. The formation seemed promising from the road, but after finding only the same old brachiopod molds and crinoid stems I saw it as a bust. Not deterred, I set on doing a little more follow up research and found that the Legendary store was nearby. After relocating we started to look and our luck turned around for the better. I bagged two of the biggest and best preserved Trilobites so far. And Dad found some weird things splitting shale that I had no idea what they could be.. Pictures below, any comments, corrections or ID's would be appreciated. This trilobite has a funny story attached to it. I spotted it laying fossil side up in the scree a foot away from my bag after slipping. After laughing at the sheer coincidence of it all I said that this is a lesson to check every rock you can when fossil hunting. on the cliff itself I found this one after splitting open the rock a bit revealing the tail of a trilobite. after careful Extraction, I wrapped the piece in tinfoil and cleaned it up at home. after some light prep work I was giddy to find out that this was a mostly intact enrolled trilobite. while the Cephalon was missing, the thorax and tail were present and folded onto each other. this is easily one of the better pieces I have found. next come the mysteries I have no solid idea if these are anything good or not but I figured I would ask you folks.

Took a few college friends out to the Deer Lake region today. Was the first time fossil hunting for one of them and the first time finding non shark teeth for another. Checked out a couple different outcroppings, everyone took a few things they enjoyed. Here is my haul from the day (feel free to correct if I miss IDed)... 1x Eldregeops 3x Mucrospirifer 1x Leptodesma

Been a while since I posted any prep projects. These were two that I finished up the other day. Taking advantage of a nice 45 degree day before it got cold again! Both are Eldregeops from Penn Dixie, prepped with an Aro scribe and air abrasive unit.

Well as of late I don't seem to be prepping many for me, although I have had some stunning fossils pass by my workshop in the last few months I know these are common as dirt. I found this little gem (dimension 27.17 mm x 17.26 mm) on Monday May 22 at Penn Dixie. So I took time this morning while working on a stunning greenops for someone else to quickly have a go at this little beauty for myself. I will post something on the greenops prep in a bit. It is going to be a nice one. A trilobite does not have to be rare to be beautiful. As far as I can recall the phacops rana ( I know that is not the correct name but it probably was when I found my first one) was the first complete trilobite I ever found, so they will always have a special place for me. The mind gets fuzzy with old age as the senility begins to creep in. This one was from Penn Dixie and took a whopping 12 minutes to prep. Other than the tip of the cephalon (head) everything was buried. Buried trilos always have the best potential to be pristine. Came out pretty nice for a quickie. Was prepped on a Comco air abrasion unit with no airscribing, using 40 micron dolomite at 25 PSI with a .030 and .015 inch nozzle under a Olympus scope at 10x magnification. No restoration, no gluing, no coatings.

I received this little guy in the mail today from someone who felt sorry for the poor critter. This one quite truthfully needed a little love and care. Seems like someone in the field decided to dump about a gallon of glue on him. Apparently he was traded for sharks teeth or something like that. Not sure why anyone would trade a perfectly good arthropod for a tooth of all things. I guess it could have been worse, could have been for a brach... All kidding aside, the owner wanted this guy to be given back a little of its glory and splendor .......as you can see based on how it was received it needed a little help It was however quite obvious that this had a decent potential to be a good prone Penn Dixie trilo that was 39 mm in length and 24 mm wide. I was feeling a little bored and thought why not just get this one done and surprise the owner with something much faster than my normal slow turnaround. Besides this one was not going to be overly complex. The matrix was a known quantity and the phacopids are not that elaborate or delicate...... The first thing that was done was to trim off the excess matrix that was still around and under the bug with a Pferd MST31 air scribe. The goal being to get it into a more uniform place. Next step was to go through my piles of incomplete material from the same location (Penn Dixie) and find a piece of matrix that has a space available on it where this bug could take up residence. A piece was found that had a nice cluster of incomplete eldredgeops rana. Paired up with this bug I thought it might make an interesting piece. Here is the bug placed on that matrix after a pocket was created for the bug to spend the rest of eternity in. The matrix removed from the pocket was ground up and mixed with some Welbond Pro which dries quickly and is perfectly clear when dry. For those who need to know the mixture was about 60% pulverized matrix and 40% Welbond. Total time spent on the piece about 30 minutes at this point Here is the bug after 1 hour of prepping under a scope at about 10x magnification. Prepped with 40 micron dolomite with a .018 nozzle and using a COMCO air abrasion unit at 30 PSI. No airscribe was used once the bug was on the matrix. Here is the bug after a final 1/2 hour of prepping. Some minor restoration of field damage was performed with a two part sculpting product (Apoxie) and some mars black acrylic for coloration was used on perhaps 1% of the fossil. Not bad for perhaps three hours total investment. A piece that was pretty much a non displayable specimen can now be the centerpiece of a Penn Dixie collection PS.... don't always assume that when you purchase a plate of trilobites that that is the way they started out life. By the way this was done with the permission of the owner and they are not being tricked into thinking this is the way it started out.

Posted this without telling Jason .... so hopefully he is cool with me posting. Jason went on a trip to Penn Dixie with a group from the forum here over Easter and found some fossils that Jason thought might be worth prepping. I was invited to attend, but there was no getting away from the wife and family over Easter. That was just a non starter. Anyway for some reason or other he realized that some of the fossils he found were actually quite nice and I guess he probably heard from some of the people on the trip that I might be able to do something with them for him. Well after a flurry of PM's, he decided to risk sending some off, to some old geezer that he didn't know from a hole in the wall, way up in Canada.... lol. So he sent me a few to have a look at and after 4 days with Fedex they arrived safely yesterday... Big note to anyone out there ...... always use regular USPS to send fossils to Canada it is the least hassle and the least expensive way to do it. Jason learned a bit of a lesson by using Fedex. Based on a quick look he is going to have a few nice ones in what he sent me, including one potentially large complete and stunning greenops. It has the potential to be one of the better greenops that I have seen come out of Penn Dixie. As with all the really good ones from there, other than part of the pygidium poking out of the matrix it is buried. A bit of a shame the matrix broke right at the edge of the greenops but I guess if it hadn't he would never have seen it. As a result the very tip of one of the pygidial spines is broken of. I could fix that up but not sure if I will , will wait to see final look of the fossil. Using a scope I have already exposed enough to know that a significant amount of the greenops is there including little spines that are generally missing. If you find something like his greenops ........ do not try to do anything with it yourself .... don't even think about it. I have seen far to many spectacular specimens destroyed by someone who just couldn't wait. They just had to pick away to see what was under there. Please have someone experienced who knows what they are doing and who has the right equipment look at it. Fossils like this are rare and fragile, touch it wrong and you have destroyed it. Unfortunately for Jason two other greenops he thought might be good that he sent me are just pygidiums. To have found 3 complete greenops at Penn Dixie in one day is absolutely unheard of and that is even knowing the exact layer in which they are found. Anyway, grabbed one of the fossils at random, eldredgeops rana and here is a quick prep sequence. Prepped using ARO, Pferd and other airscribes and Comco air abrasion unit set at 30 PSI 40 micron dolomite under a Nikon scope. Used a Comco .018 purple high precision nozzle until near the very end when I switched to a .010. Here is a bad picture of the fossil before starting Here it is 15 minutes into prep Here it is 30 mins into prep