First trips of the season

[connorp]

With the nicer weather last week, I was able to make two brief trips to kick of the year. There still ended up being a lot of snow on the ground, but it was manageable. My first trip was to one of my favorite sites, a roadcut in the Pennsylvanian LaSalle Limestone in Illinois. Lots of the usual stuff was found, but the two trip makers were a small Peripristis shark tooth and a Linoproductus mass mortality plate.

 

Here's the tooth. I think it will clean up nicely.

 

And here are the Linoproductus. There's around 50 individuals present, and they are all quite small compared to most Linoproductus specimens I find at this site. This is probably the best brach plate I've found here.

 

Here's a random shot I took of the headwall. Most of the common brachiopod species at this site are visible.

 

 

A few days later I had a couple hours free in the morning and checked out some new Ordovician spots in southern Wisconsin. Here's a neat roadcut I drove past, showing the contact between the Ancell and Sinnipee Groups. The lower unit is the St. Peter Sandstone and the upper unit is the Pecatonica Member of the Platteville Formation. The Glenwood Shale is the narrow shale unit between the two.

 

The site I ended up hunting was in the Grand Detour Member of the Platteville. In this area it's mostly dolomite, and most fossils are internal molds. The preservation is thus not great, but splitting rock can yield nice mollusks on occasion. Here's a typical example of the molluscan hash.

 

This large Ctenodonta was a nice treat. It's about 6cm at the widest dimension.

 

The trip maker was a coiled nautiloid, the first I've found. I am not sure on the ID. It measures about 2cm in diameter.

[deutscheben]

Nice finds! For whatever reason Peripristis teeth from that site often have such a lovely color gradient, they are one of my favorites. I actually drove by there on Friday and it looked pretty snow-covered still, so bravo on getting some collecting in (I was in the area for other reasons or I would have poked around a little myself). 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Very nice indeed.

Love the brachiopod and the photo and description of the different formations was very useful to me. 

[Misha]

Awesome finds!

That roadcut has some really nice stuff, I really like the picture of the wall with fossils in it.

[FossilNerd]

Not a bad start to the season! I actually like the molluscan hash plate, even if the preservation isn’t the best. Congrats on the coiled nautiloid. Nice finds, and report, all the way around.  

[Thomas.Dodson]

Very nice stuff. I only visited this site once in Illinois and I regret not visiting it more. At least I got a good collection of brachiopods from there. I kept one brach plate that was a cut above the rest like the Linoproductus plate you picked up.

[minnbuckeye]

Great finds, especially for as early in the season as it is. Was the frost out of the ground? I was thinking of a road trip to Iowa. Locally in Minnesota, the frost prohibits hunting yet. 

 

Mike

[connorp]

19 hours ago, deutscheben said:

Nice finds! For whatever reason Peripristis teeth from that site often have such a lovely color gradient, they are one of my favorites. I actually drove by there on Friday and it looked pretty snow-covered still, so bravo on getting some collecting in (I was in the area for other reasons or I would have poked around a little myself). 

I've noticed that as well. The petalodont teeth from here are really quite beautiful, definitely my favorite to find.

18 hours ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

Very nice indeed.

Love the brachiopod and the photo and description of the different formations was very useful to me. 

 

16 hours ago, FossilNerd said:

Not a bad start to the season! I actually like the molluscan hash plate, even if the preservation isn’t the best. Congrats on the coiled nautiloid. Nice finds, and report, all the way around.  

17 hours ago, Misha said:

Awesome finds!

That roadcut has some really nice stuff, I really like the picture of the wall with fossils in it.

Glad you all enjoyed.

 

13 hours ago, Thomas.Dodson said:

Very nice stuff. I only visited this site once in Illinois and I regret not visiting it more. At least I got a good collection of brachiopods from there. I kept one brach plate that was a cut above the rest like the Linoproductus plate you picked up.

It's definitely one of my favorite spots. Not very large, but I still find something new on every trip.

5 hours ago, minnbuckeye said:

Great finds, especially for as early in the season as it is. Was the frost out of the ground? I was thinking of a road trip to Iowa. Locally in Minnesota, the frost prohibits hunting yet. 

 

Mike

Seems like it. I saw the first flowers this morning which was exciting. Still some snow, but from what I saw even a couple hours north, I would imagine you guys have a lot more right now.

[connorp]

@Nimravis @deutscheben You might find this interesting.

 

On this trip I collected a few chunks of the shale partings that had weathered out. I rinsed and sieved, and picked out the larger fossils that were visible to the naked eye. (I'll have to use a microscope next time.)  Most of what I found were crinoid bits, but there were a couple interesting finds.

 

Chonetinella? sp.

 

Punctospirifer kentuckyensis

 

Chonetid? bit

 

Fish bit

 

Nothing super fancy, but I have never found chonetids nor Punctospirifer in the limestone at this site. I've also collected several Lophophyllidium horn corals from the shale in the past, but none from the limestone.

[Nimravis]

Cool finds, congrats.

[deutscheben]

Nice! I have found some chonetids there, but nothing like that adorable little spirifer.