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It has been 10 days since my trip to Wyoming  came to a close. I have done a rough cleaning of my finds and will display some of them for you. 

To begin with, I had a continuing education class in Jackson. The scenery around the Tetons is truly breath taking.  But I was eager to depart and begin a fossil hunting adventure with the 3 free days I had left.

 

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I love my bald eagles and found this photogenic pair as I departed town. 

 

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My first stop was NE of Farson in an attempt  to find some petrified palm wood. Here is the "road" which brought me to where I thought I should be. 

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 No petrified wood was found but I did put a few specimens in my bucket. I believe these are some algal structures??? They littered the butte

that I was hunting on.

  

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This was not the start that I wanted, but just enjoying the openness of the Wyoming countryside made up for the lack of finds. I finished the day by taking in this sunset before  departing.

  

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Tomorrow will be a new day and the fossil gods may be kinder, at least I hope.  

 

The next site is south of Wamsutter, and the hopeful finds will be "Turritella agate". This  Green River Formation (Lamey Member) fresh water snail species is really Elimia tenera, not turritella.  I must thank @jpc for directing me there without a hitch. This site appeared on google earth to be a hop, skip, and a jump from the gravel road. It is MANY MANY JUMPS!!! Had he not told me to continue until I saw these hills, I would have experienced my second failure. 

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  As you approach the hills, the road forks and the right fork takes you up on top giving you this view.  

 

 

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 UP top, Elimia are everywhere, for miles and miles!!! Every dark rock in this next photo' foreground contains them. 

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An individual rock typical of what you see in the previous photo:

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These gastropods lived near shore in an environment of intermittent volcanic eruptions, which spewed hot silica rich ground water into their environment. Hence the fossils are mostly silicified. Individual gastropods can be picked up. I am attempting to dissolve half of my specimens so that only the silicified interior exists. They are gorgeous, multicolored without their shell. These have had a short acid bath but need more. 

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Most collectors want slabs of the agate. Here is a piece that was cut open. This is what it looks like WITHOUT  polishing!!! 

 

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WOW Mike! I am sooo jealous! LOVE those gastropods! I've ridden the Tetons on horseback and was a camp cook when I was young there, but never got down to the lowlands to fossil hunt. LOVE those that you are giving an acid bath - just stunning! And your photography really captures the area!  :-D

The more I learn, I realize the less I know.

:wacko:
 
 

Go to my

Gallery for images of Fossil Jewelry, Sculpture & Crafts
 

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That countryside is incredibly beautiful! :b_love1:

And the turritella agate, as well. I have a couple of small pieces of the matrix and a couple of tumbled bits, but those loose silicified molds are gorgeous. 

Though I understood that they were the freshwater species Elimia tenera and not really Turritella at all. 

Life's Good!

Tortoise Friend.

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Let me jump out of order here as I want to visit Tate Museum next. @jpc must be curator of this wonderful place!!! But why didn't I ask him???

    His invitation to visit the museum behind the scenes was the highlight of my trip! Since I began fossil hunting, it has  been limited to aquatic specimens with a few plants thrown in. So to get to see vertebrate fossils "in the raw" was very exciting. As you will see, most of my pictures are behind closed doors and not of their fabulous public display. For those of you on a budget, the Tate museum is FREE. Mrs. Tate left instructions that no one will ever be charged. Bless her heart. With that said, enlargement of the facilities is needed and they do accept donations. How else can the specimens behind the curtain be shown????

    Once leaving the public domain, I was immediately face to face with a huge T rex still in it's jacket and likely to remain as such. Unfortunately, this specimen is headless, but still IMPRESSIVE! 

  

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Here is all that was visible of this giant when jcp found it. I sure would have walked by not noticing this beast.

 

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Two things intrigued me about this animal. How could the massive head disappear??? And what kind of pathology exists on it's  long bone? 

It was exhilarating to be standing next to this discovery. So different than seeing a finished specimen displayed  for the public to see.

 

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Once the thrill of the T rex subsided, I noticed that there were bones everywhere!! Piles of them. 

 

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The museum better not find any other specimens because every nook and cranny of that room  was occupied by broken bones of the past, just waiting to be reconstructed. At this point, I had to wipe the drool from my face.   

 

Here is a staff member doing some prep work as a budding paleontologist looks on.

 

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Wow mike excellent pics as always, sounds like an awesome trip :yay-smiley-1:

Every once in a great while it's not just a big rock down there!

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Now a few public pictures of the Tate Museum: 

  

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Last but not least, @jpc himself next to a prized possession!! 

 

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Are you tired of Wyoming yet?? I hope not as I am about half way done!!  there will be many more fossils to come AFTER my next adventure is told. A few free hours existed before I was going to leave for Casper and the Tate Museum, so I attempted to find a spot with minerals/crystals. As I exited the paved road, my phone told me I was only 8.9 miles away. Not bad except it also told me it would be 54 minutes before arrival. Something didn't seem right. The road I turned off on led up a valley. 

 

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Can you believe google maps even knows about this "road"!!! No one has traveled this path in a long time. Large animals have built their dens in the ruts of the road. If my tire would drop in one of these, I would be stuck.DSC_0744-001.thumb.JPG.21442b0377fbc9582abef7a62d5eb6bf.JPG 

 

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I managed to circumvent 6 dens on the way to my chosen spot. But that was not the only problem with my attempt to reach a site. As mentioned, the road led up a valley. A dry stream bed had to be crossed many times, first dropping down at a 45 degree angle  and then rapidly up the other side, just as steep. After 45 minutes, A huge washed out creek crossing appeared before my eyes, stopping me dead in my tracks.The road got the best of me. Carefully turning the small SUV around, I headed back. It was then that I began noticing large ant mounds. Remembering ants can bring up fossils, I checked a few dozen out. Here is a find in one of them. Not sure if it is modern or fossil femur. Since it had to be left, I will never know. At least I wasn't skunked.

 

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Now I will backtrack and show the site I visited the day after the Convention. 

 

 

 

 

 

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This is the sign to @sseth's American Fossil Quarry. Unlike the sites I have shown, at least this one has beef for dinner if I get stranded! 

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The quarry, near Kemmerer, exposes the Green River split fish layer. If one is to find a big fish, one must split a big rock. Going into the hunt with that philosophy, I found a specimen 3 ft by 4ft by 6 ft and felt there HAD TO BE a big fish in there. Guess what. No there wasn't. Here are some of the finds from that slab.

  

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Nice fish! 

Super photos. 

And the museum looks amazing. 

Life's Good!

Tortoise Friend.

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These were some of the nice fish in that slab, but after i finished splitting it and moving around to other slabs, I immediately found better fish. But they were from smaller rocks so were partials. To start with is a plate of gar scales which I bartered for. 

 

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The last fish, a Priscacara, has split with some of the fish on each slab. Can I carefully remove pieces and glue to the other plate or do I glue it together and prep down to it? 

 

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Two more sites to go!!! 

I spent quite a bit of time researching and gaining permission to look for some fossil leaves. Thank goodness it paid off. These are not the best fossils but the site is worth going back to and spending a day instead of an hour. I did spend a half a day here but it took until the last hour to find the layer to explore. Part of the thrill of the hunt!! 

 

Any thoughts on these small "twigs"? 

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 Any thoughts on this striated fossil?

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And finally, does anyone reconize the leaves? 

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Enviable trip and finds! It's nice to see the sites where some of our fossils come from, such as those 'Turritella agates' which everyone seems to have an example of.

That striated one looks like a bit of a horsetail to me.

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In my opinion, I saved my most enjoyable hunt for last.  The petrified Blue Forest provides a chance to combine minerals/crystals and fossils (a combo I love) and I planned on digging up some outstanding specimens. I purchased a shovel with this intent, but when I put the spade into the ground, it was ROCK hard, excuse the pun. Digging is the way to uncover the best specimens but I did not realize that the soft matrix containing the wood, wet in the spring,  dries like hardened cement in the summer. So surface collecting was the only strategy I used. The Blue Forest is part of the Eocene Green River Formation (same as fossil fish).  Lake Gosiute would periodically flood and the flooded forest trees fell into the water where they became encrusted with algae. Ash from the local volcanoes would entomb and preserve  the wood. As with the gastropods shown earlier, silicication of the wood occured due to volcanism. Then bluish chalcedony precipitated into the space formed between the algae and wood due to iron, titanium, magnesium, and copper in the water. With time any voids not filled with the chalcedony eventually filled with a yellowish crystalline calcite. Quite a combination! 

Here is a piece of algae. Notice where the wood would have sat in the center. DSC_0916-001.thumb.JPG.020872e281ed68a363da16242c2ba630.JPG

 

Next is chalcedony with the typical blue hue. The tan is algae again.

 

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Here is one of the most colorful pieces I found. In this case, the algae takes on a darker form.DSC_0914-001.thumb.JPG.200dfc837035c3b168ae25a224663a01.JPG 
 When one surface collects, this is what is very common to find. The wood and chalcedony show up well. I have removed the algal coating.

 

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I have many pieces to clean up yet. Here are 2 that have been worked on. The first shows calcite very well.

 

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In closing I will leave you with two more photos from my trip.  

 

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1 hour ago, minnbuckeye said:

 

 

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Is this the Flatiron mountains, near by Boulder, CO.? It's my favorite place in the USA to visit!

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Awesome trip report! I gotta go back to that side of Wyoming someday. This post puts a little pressure on me to write up my own! Just what I needed.

:thumbsu:

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Awesome trip report, Mike!  I think my favourite find of yours this time around was the "turritella agate" - both in a slab and loose, they are exquisite!!!

 

(Your commentary about the large slab of fish-containing rock made me chuckle, by the way. :))

 

Gorgeous scenery - perhaps I should visit Wyoming someday, too... :zzzzscratchchin:

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12 hours ago, Darbi said:

Is this the Flatiron mountains, near by Boulder, CO

 Good eye @Darbi!!  I flew to Denver and drove. It was $19 to fly to Denver, $200 to fly to Salt Lake City. This way, I had the opportunity to see more countryside and keep my money in my pocket!!

 

9 hours ago, smt126 said:

after your initial disappointment.

@smt126   Actually, I had no disappointments! Did I have areas where fossils were not found as expected? Yes. But the hunts were still wonderful.

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19 hours ago, Darbi said:

Is this the Flatiron mountains, near by Boulder, CO.? It's my favorite place in the USA to visit!

Correct and they are fun to climb.

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@minnbuckeye fantastic trip report, love all of the pictures and your finds, the Tate Museum is a great place to visit. If I ever get out that way, I will have to look @jpc up and see if he is around.

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