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Went on the field trip with the NYPS to Madison County today. We went to 2 sites today. The first one was DSR and the second one was a new locality in Brookfield, NY. It was basically untouched and there were greenops everywhere ( but I’ll talk about that in a later post because this one’s all about the phyllocarids). I managed to find 5 or so partial Rhinocaris carapaces at DSR. None of them with telsons or anything fancy like that. At the second spot though, I got lucky! Along with 7 more Rhinocaris partials I found an Echinocaris with both valves and part of the Telson! Definitely one of my best finds ever.

Here is the final installment of my trip report to DSR (last spring with TFF group meet). These are the rest of the specimens including Gastropoda, Cephalopoda, Hyolitha, Phyllocarida, Trilobita, Ectoprocta, Plantae, etc. Scale in mm. A Palaeozygopleura encrusted with the bryozoan Leptotrypella amplectens. A close-up of Leptotrypella amplectens I am not sure what this is. I am assuming gastropod, but unlike the Bellarophontids, this one doesn't seem to have the ridge or furrow down the center. It's also quite large. And the striations look different than any I can find that are typical of the site. @Jeffrey P, @Fossildude19?

Hey everyone! Back at it again. This time I’ll keep it a little shorter and get to the fossils. I made it back out into the field last weekend and visited DSR and Cole Hill on Sunday 3/29/20 with fellow forum goer @DrDave. Usually we shake hands on our hellos and goodbyes like any two people would. It was odd not giving the usual greetings with a friend and keeping distance during social interaction. Almost feels rude it’s a weird feeling. You almost have to say “sorry I can’t touch you” so you don’t seem rude lol. Unusual times we must adjust to. Anyway. At DSR I have been kinda working an area that has been rewarding me over and over. Either I’m working a productive interval OR I am simply working an area that is easy to flip slabs therefore yielding more specimens. To actually know I would have to dig seriously at different levels and see what I find. There was actually and obnoxious amount of talus on top of this and I had to rake with a purpose to get it cleared up. FIRST slab I pulled up....do you see it? Same picture zoomed in a little....see it now? Same picture zoomed in more...see it now? I wiped off some mud and took another photo....this is why phyllocarids get missed. They don’t really pop when you first find them. I scour every rock very carefully and even then they aren’t exactly jumping out of the shale. I’ve found some of my BEST specimens in other peoples garbage piles. I’ve have found spectacular specimens this way. I knew I had a beautiful Rhinocaris double carapace and I could see something curious sticking out the end but I wanted to clean it up before I made assumptions on my observations. I actually found several phyllocarid specimens on this day . I’m going to share some of the process I go through cleaning and cutting choice specimens and show the final results! stay tuned

I had a rough work week last week with Central New York experiencing major flooding. It forced me to work the weekend and kinda ruined my fossil hunting thoughts. I only worked half a day Saturday 11/02/19 so I took advantage of what little sunlight I had. I had to be home before 5 to go to the mall with my wife to return some soccer shoes.......married life lol. With travel time I figured out I could go to DSR and get 70-80 minutes to fossil hunt! I needed this to de-stress so I went for it . I didn’t get much time but I tried to make it count. I knew I wasn’t going to be doing any major digging due to the lack of time. My plan was to try and keep working slabs I pulled from the interval I keep finding phyllocarids. When I got there I saw a large area to the left of where I worked that was ripped up with slabs around. It was the same interval and layers as the productive ones I worked 30 feet away. I wish I recorded the moment because I literally said out loud “I’m going to find a phyllocarid in these discards”.......walked 2 steps and found this in the discard pile.... here is a field shot....I was excited and terrified cause I realized I just found a Rhinocaris columbina phyllocarid with both carapaces and the telson but the telson is on the counterpart!! I thought I was going to have another fish that got away story but then I finally found the other half after an agonizing 40 minutes. Remember I didn’t have long haha. here is a field shot of the other half. Telson top left. I got a call from work and I was literally on the phone working and fossil hunting when I found the other half and silently cheered then continued my phone conversation here is a photo of the raw uncut slabs I collected from the field. I have a saw now so I’m not as concerned with reducing in the field as I used to be. Here are some photos of the finished product. This is a really exciting find because of the amazing association of both carapaces AND the telson. Really an informative specimen. It also came from the same interval I’m finding other phyllocarids. The very delicate disarticulation of the one carapace and slight spread of all the phyllocarid parts makes me very curious about the paleo setting. This is a photo of an artists recreation of a Silurian phyllocarid I found on google. This is not a Rhinocaris columbina but it does have some similarities that will help people visualize what a Rhinocaris may look like. this little something I circled had me wondering if it was possibly associated with this phyllocarid. Almost seems like a little appendage but there is really no way of knowing for sure I suppose. Interesting either way. thanks for reading! Not a whole lot just a single find that I think is really awesome . A quick little DSR trip (11/02/19) with a nice reward! Al