Florissant Fossil Quarry - Colorado

[Brett Breakin' Rocks]

Well, I'm in my new habitat out here in Colorado, and while I miss dearly a good paddle on the river and my fossil hunts in the mud and sand, I had to make a trip out to our local spot at the Florissant Fossil Quarry. The kids seemed to dig smashing shale (it lasted about an hour), and the technique actually yielded our first decent leaf fossil.

 

The shale smasher .. in disguise !!

 

Dad, wanted to take a lighter approach and we did come home with a large bag of shale and some plant and insect specimens. 

 

I'll post some of those in this thread, eventually when I scan them. Splitting the shale you will often come upon Reaaaaly tiny insects that my failing vision has a hard time catching. This winged insect (a mosquito ?!) had bits on each side of the rock so I scanned and composited him in Photoshop. Didn't turn out too bad.  I'll let you know what else I find.

 

Raw Scans:

 

 

Composite:

 

Cheers,

Brett

[PrehistoricWonders]

Nice finds!!! I love the leaf!!!

[Tidgy's Dad]

Very nice. 

The shale smasher looks very gleeful. 

[Top Trilo]

Very cool, I went there a couple months ago for the first time and had a lot of fun finding leaves and insects. Are you good at identifying Florissant fossils, I have some that I haven't been able to identify yet. 

[Brett Breakin' Rocks]

32 minutes ago, Top Trilo said:

Very cool, I went there a couple months ago for the first time and had a lot of fun finding leaves and insects. Are you good at identifying Florissant fossils, I have some that I haven't been able to identify yet. 

Florrisant is definitely outside of my wheelhouse. I tried to make myself an expert on my local fauna on the East Coast. Gonna need some time to educate myself about this part of the country.  Lots and lots of time ... 

 

37 minutes ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

Very nice. 

The shale smasher looks very gleeful. 

He enjoyed very much just pounding the clay and shale to dust. 

41 minutes ago, Familyroadtrip said:

Nice finds!!! I love the leaf!!!

Thanks .. I was glad not all of the fossils were destroyed in this process .. haha

[Brett Breakin' Rocks]

A few more .. a rough prep so far.

But look close .. those bugs are everywhere in the litter. You can barely make out a pair of wings in there as well. So delicate.

 

 

Enhance and composite !

 

[PaleoNoel]

30 minutes ago, Brett Breakin' Rocks said:

A few more .. a rough prep so far.

But look close .. those bugs are everywhere in the litter. You can barely make out a pair of wings in there as well. So delicate.

 

I found that same type of leaf when I went there back in 2017, does anyone know what it is?

Great finds btw! I do like the set up they have at the quarry.

[jpc]

while river-bound fossiling is not the norm in CO, there are plenty of rivers to play on (esp if you enjoy whitewater). 

[Wrangellian]

Interesting idea... I wonder if it can be refined at all. How do you get the two halves lined up just right to align them in the composite image? I might try this with some of my insect fossils.

[Brett Breakin' Rocks]

5 hours ago, Wrangellian said:

Interesting idea... I wonder if it can be refined at all. How do you get the two halves lined up just right to align them in the composite image? I might try this with some of my insect fossils.

Well, since I can't put down any markers for registration I had to use landmarks in the image (usually the legs/shared cracks in the rock), so in that respect it may be off by a few pixels. I'm also scanning the image so I know that the size is a 1:1 exact match. With a camera or microscope I think there would be too much room for error(?)

 

As for the scanner the bulb will hit the rock from different directions causing shadows in some spots so I experimented a little in which direction would be best. But that could be improved. I used various filters to see which worked best. That can also be improved I bet. Better photography software to adjust and filter (levels etc) would also help. 

 

I burned/dodged the details manually to enhance the contrast. 

 

Cheers,

Brett

 

 

[Wrangellian]

So you're using a program that you can easily rotate an image until it fits over the other? That may be my biggest roadblock - on mine it's tricky.

[Brett Breakin' Rocks]

3 hours ago, Wrangellian said:

So you're using a program that you can easily rotate an image until it fits over the other? That may be my biggest roadblock - on mine it's tricky.

Yeah .... and then I can add filters that use the images values to create --overlays-- that you can adjust. A transparency of sorts that you can pull the additional detail from, extract the extra pieces that were missing from the original.  

 

You know .. have you tried GIMP ?  An open source Photoshop-like program. Good for beginners as well. https://www.gimp.org/

 

And .. if you want Photoshop CS2 it is Free and can be downloaded here: https://www.techspot.com/downloads/3689-adobe-photoshop-cs2.html  (I just checked the link -downloaded- and it's clean) They provide the serial number on the download page. 

 

I used Photoshop CS2 for 10+ years ?  .. I paid for the program once and am not fond of paying for the 'service' every month. 

 

Cheers,

Brett

 

 

[Wrangellian]

I don't think I've ever tried GIMP but I'm not exactly a beginner, I would only download it if it had features that I didn't have on the other programs I've got (PhotoStudio and Paint which so far have done almost everything I've needed).

Maybe I'll try that Photoshop sometime - what has kept me from Photoshop so far is the pricetag, and I agree with what you say about a monthly fee. I was not aware there was a free version, but then there is for Miscrosoft Word/etc so why not?