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Showing results for tags 'molted trilobite'.
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Hello Everyone In June last year I went on a trip with my parents to the Late Ordovician / Early Silurian-aged Cotton Formation at the Cotton Hill quarry in Forbes. All relevant permission was obtained from the local council prior to attending. I have heard that the Fossil Club of Australia (formerly NSW) do trips here as a group as well, that's probably the easiest way to attend. I planned to post this in August, however due to Covid I didn’t have access to the fossils to take pictures. Also, I only just recently bought some macro equipment to take photos of the fossils which is why my post took so long. Be sure to zoom in on each photo as they are all highly detailed. (open in a new tab) For useful previous expeditions and information by others see: For those unaware, the fauna is dominated by Sinespinaspis markhami, a small odontopleurid trilobite. Unfortunately, I found no specimens with their free cheeks attached, nor did I find any specimens of the rarer Aulacopleura pogsoni or the even rarer Raphiophorus sandfordi. We had two days of digging, and the temperature was a cool 14-15C on both days, but once the sun came out and with long-sleeve shirt and pants on, we definitely started sweating. As soon as we got out of the car, I found a partial trilobite negative lying on the ground. It was 8mm long and looked like it was left behind by another fossicker. Once we realised where the designated fossicking area was (back near the road entrance, and not in front of the parking area) we could start properly searching for fossils. The first ones we found were on the surface on the westernmost boundary. It’s amazing how big the actual site is. Considering how deep the hole in the ground is, there probably would’ve been thousands or millions of fossils unearthed and used in road material over the years. Both the plates seem to be death assemblages, with hundreds of “trilo-bits” on them along with what looks like tiny shells. When I got home, I wanted to split the L-shaped to expose more of the second layer (you can see one set of cold chisel marks) but the matrix must have been unstable as it cracked into five pieces and exploded. It did set free a new trilobite though, which is cool.
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