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An Amazing Start to the New Year....


OregonFossil

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No images (yet, they are coming), yesterday in celebration of my Stereo Microscope (3.5 to 90x with camera port) shipping I decided to go fossil hunting. @71 I have to be careful when I go hunting (my wife it turns out is a fair weather digger:heartylaugh:) by myself. I have spent the last months working on my collections from the summer in two Keasey Formation locations (deep and shallow marine) with good manual tools and a dremel, but with sup-optimal hand optics (one is actually a very nice 8x optic but just to hard to use). So my wife said why don't you get a reasonable scope (would be my first since high school). So I ordered an AMscope and added a ring light to go with my video LED's I used for lighting. Not the best, but what I could afford and should work well with my camera capable of taking 80 MPX stills and being tethering to my PC showing the image on a 4K 50" screen. So being excited I went to the easiest of the two locations I've been "digging".

 

Low 40's (F) and raining when I left in my Subaru Crosstrek (both of my cars are 4x4's to get me where I want go go here in Oregon) I was thinking "if I only find a couple of new things I will be happy". This location the actual out cropped is on an extremely steep hill, and I "dig" only in the talus at the bottom, what falls is where I find. As I approached the site I started to fill the anticipation. I parked at the base of the hill, and started my adventure. There are two layers at this location, one is a sandstone that is loosely consolidated (I think shallow water) and the a hard Shale (earlier deep water). First find in an unconsolidated sandstone that falls apart in my hand leaving a complete (top/bottom shells - one piece) in my hand. Big smile. Then I look a bit farther and I see the "mother-load" as the miners say. Apparently the heavy rains of the last couple of weeks have cause a large piece of shale to break off the formation and tumble the 70 or 80' down and break into about 15 rocks weighing between 5 and 30 pounds, fossils are abundant in every rock. I know the state will clear these because they are on the edge of the road and present a hazard. I move and leave 3 pieces for the next lucky person. I load what I think is about 100 pounds of large rocks in the car and then add a trash bag full of the unconsolidated  sandstone, and a 10 gallon buck of small pieces that have the same matrix of shells. I now have my winter tasks all set. I've accumulated a lot of research and images from which work on the identifications this winter. If this find had not be a road hazard on this blind curve I would have left more but there was a road crew working not more than a couple of miles away and I could not risk that these precious finds would end up in the rock crusher or just dumped somewhere.

 

I will be posting my finds here asking for ID help I am sure and with the new scope hopefully some great images. All and all a great way to start the New Year off. I've attached just a quick macro shoot of a snail. Haven't ID it yet, guess anyone? BTW its a cast and that is why some areas are Out of Focus (didn't have time to stack images).

 

_1130277.jpg

Edited by OregonFossil
change while to why
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41 minutes ago, OregonFossil said:

BTW its a cast and that while areas are Out of Focus (didn't have time to stack images).

Glad you are aware of image stacking software. It's an extra step and a bit laborious (especially if you have to manually change the focal plane between images) but it quickly starts to become a necessity when shooting microscopic images of subjects that are anything but two dimensional. :)

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

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Better image. One of the benefits of a M43 camera is that this is shot @f11 but DOF is the equivalent of f22 with my Olympus 60mm macro lens. Could not figure out how to replace the image after 24 hours. This mold is approximately 12mm long.

 

Cast_Snail_KeaseyFormation.thumb.jpg.16aa156dfc931cbb1efef98cf4d59207.jpg

Edited by OregonFossil
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42 minutes ago, OregonFossil said:

Could not figure out how to replace the image after 24 hours.

By design. ;)

 

Adding supplemental images to your topic works just fine.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

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