Experiment: YOU pick the location for my May 2021 Fossil Excursion

[Kane]

My sincere apologies @LabRatKing, as my statement did not come out as intended, and instead came out curmudgeonly. 

Carry on, all, and ignore the silly grump over here.  

[LabRatKing]

7 hours ago, Kane said:

My sincere apologies @LabRatKing, as my statement did not come out as intended, and instead came out curmudgeonly. 

Carry on, all, and ignore the silly grump over here.  

No worries! I actually prefer to find and plan my own solo excursions, but I figure this is a fun way to let folks live vicariously through my adventures.

 

 I’m busy as heck this time of year, but I find my excursions are even more fun when I can share them with folks that may not be able to get hardcore- pooping in a bag- living off MREs-

 

This isn’t about finding sites- I have literally hundreds to explore- this is about giving back, inspiring, and to be honest, an excuse to burn my five year backlog of vacation days!

[LabRatKing]

On 4/22/2021 at 12:55 AM, Wrangellian said:

Some great ones already named... I'd actually like to see you hit any of those sites you were planning to take a group to in Utah/Nevada, but I could not name a specific one as I don't know much about the specific sites, I just know the formation names and that there are lots of interesting Cambrian (and Ordovician) goodies to be found. I've seen 3D Archeocyathids from the Poleta Fm but I don't know if that site is public or private.

Is Bear Gulch in Montana accessible to the public?

Oh, the Utah and Nevada sites are a given- that is a complete separate excursion- this and future “weekenders” are how I test gear and hone skills beforehand- when I return to civilization in August, that will result in multiple trip reports!

[Wrangellian]

That's good! 

[val horn]

it is amazing how many places are within 10 hours of omaha.   I would send you to texas specifically North Sulfur river, ladonia fossil park with camping at Cooper lake state park.  It has nice reviews, but I dont do camping.  In a reasonable distance from Ladonia  is ammonite beach off of  Lake Texoma, and inspiration point in Marion Sansom park  outside of Fort Worth.  Have fun.  I am hoping to get to the Nebraska badlands  (8+ hours from Omaha)  at the end of May  there are several ranches that have bed and breakfast (and camping as well I believe) that for a fee allow fossil hunting on their land-- white river fossils and occasional pleistocene fossils as well.

[LabRatKing]

12 hours ago, val horn said:

it is amazing how many places are within 10 hours of omaha.   I would send you to texas specifically North Sulfur river, ladonia fossil park with camping at Cooper lake state park.  It has nice reviews, but I dont do camping.  In a reasonable distance from Ladonia  is ammonite beach off of  Lake Texoma, and inspiration point in Marion Sansom park  outside of Fort Worth.  Have fun.  I am hoping to get to the Nebraska badlands  (8+ hours from Omaha)  at the end of May  there are several ranches that have bed and breakfast (and camping as well I believe) that for a fee allow fossil hunting on their land-- white river fossils and occasional pleistocene fossils as well.

Oh yes, tons of spots out there! Just be careful with Nebraska sites. Many ranchers in NE do not have the mineral rights OR the actual fossil sites are on protected lands. Vertebrate fossils in NE aren’t legal to take in many situations. Always do your homework!
 

One of the reasons I still haven’t left the Omaha area is the central location. I’m basically within a one day drive of 2/3rds of the country.

 

Travel times can be a bit confusing as say, Bismarck ND is 12-14 hours away, but Denver CO is 8.

 

with a week left for suggestions, it looks like I might actually be able to hit multiple spots, both from the winning votes and my vast archive of locations.

[BigKen]

If you work it right, you can have it all.  Try this on for size:

 

Day 1:  Drive Omaha to Sulphur OK/Chickasaw National Recreation Area:  There are multiple campgrounds in and outside park limits. It’s about an 8-hr drive so, as long as you leave Nebraska by mid-morning, you will be checked into your campground with several hours of daylight left.  If you are up to it, there are a number of road cuts and exposures just outside the recreation area (and within a few minutes drive of any campground) that would make for nice way to kill a few hours picking through some ordivician and lower Devonian brachiopods, etc.   As with all Federal property, you can’t collect within the boundaries of the Recreation Area.  

 

Day 2:   Black Cat Mountain or Theisens Quarry to hunt for trilobites.  Both charge quite a bit of money but you will get a guided experience and you will essentially be guaranteed to find many, many great looking trilobites.  White Mound is also a pay site in the area but should be much cheaper than the first two cited.  It is also rumored to be heavily picked over and not nearly so productive as it used to be so it may not be as likely that you will get the kind of trilobite haul the other places promise but there will be more brachiopods and crinoids than you can shake a stick at so you won’t leave empty handed.  

 

If you want to be a bit more adventurous and try to complete your trip without paying any fees for collecting, there are plenty of legal free exposures in the vicinity, too.  I guarantee with some research, you will locate a handful, or, better yet, just recruit a local to take you to his favorite honey holes.  I’ll be happy to share mine with you privately, but as a relative newby, I’ve found some nice spots but I wouldn’t go so far as to call any of them honey holes.  

 

Assuming you go to one of the pay quarries, I am guessing they will limit you to 4 or 6 hours of hunting so it may be mid-afternoon when you are finished, probably with a car weighed down with bugs.  

 

Drive to to “Waurika Pond” (1 hour)

 

Collect at Waurika Pond (2 hours).  which is a Permian microfossil site about an hour from the Sulphur, OK area.   It is a well known and fairly public exposure so you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding directions to the site, but if you can’t find anything, I can tell you privately.  

 

You won’t be spending too much time at Waurika.  I am saying 2 hours is plenty of time to scout things out, find the best matrix you can and fill a 5 gallon bucket with as much as you can manage and drag it back to your car.  You can then sort through the matrix at your leisure once you get home.  There is lots of cool stuff in it:  teeth, claws, Corpolites, bone fragments.  I guarantee you will have hours of fun sorting through this matrix on rainy days.  

 

Drive to Fort Richardson State Park.  Jacksboro, TX.  (1 hour) for the night 

 

Day 3:  Hunt for Pennsylvanian fossils at Jacksboro dam spillway - 6 hours.

I’ve yet to make it hear but I’ve seen what others have collected.  Great quantity and quality of marine fossils including echinoderms, Gastropods and bivalves.  
 

 

Drive from Jacksboro, TX to Sherman, TX (2 hours).

 

Sherman, TX:  Hunt for Shark’s teeth in Post Oak Creek (4 hours).  

The beauty of hitting Post Oak in the late afternoon is that it is one of the few fossil-hunting sites in this part of the world that actually has some shade.  By late May, it can be pretty steamy in North Texas so that little shaded gully in Sherman might feel like a dream.  You will be wading in the creek and sifting through the gravel (you will need something on your feet, water shoes or hip waders.... I much prefer water shoes especially in warm weather) and even though it is a very developed area, you will forget there is a busy street overhead and a bustling town all around.  You will hear birds singing and the creek gurgling along and your own voice saying:  “Oh look what I found!” over and over again and not much else.  Your blood pressure will be 20 points lower when you finally climb out of that creek bed.  

 

NOTE 1:  the creek is very polluted.  If you eat afterwards, make sure you really scrub your hands... like until you think skin is going to start coming off, then scrub them a bit more.  

 

NOTE 2:   Days are pretty long in late May in these parts so, if you are enjoying the the shark teeth hunting (and, trust me, it is darn fun), you could keep at it until near to 9:00 pm before it gets too dark.  I am putting this down for a 4 hour hunt because you will find a lot of cool stuff in four hours and it will have been a long day for you by then.  You could easily squeeze in another hour or two or three with an early start at Jacksboro and then working Post Oak to nearly sunset if you have the stamina and the attention span for it.  

 

NOTE 3:  when you are ready to leave Post Oak Creek, spend 5 minutes filling a 5-gallon bucket of gravel from the creek.  As with the Waurika matrix, this will give you hours and hours of enjoyment on rainy days and/or cold nights back home as you sort through it.  

 

Drive to Crockett State Park Campground (1 hour) for the night.  

 

Day 4:  Ladonia Fossil Park, North Sulphur River (8 hours).... to find yourself some Mosasaur bones and plenty of other Cretaceous goodies.   Of course, you don’t have to use the Ladonia Park as your entry point and, by all accounts, the immediate vicinity of the park gets pretty picked over pretty quickly once the warm weather arrives and the rains stop.  I am sure some NSR regulars can give you pointers on other entry points that may or may not be more fruitful or, since May is still potentially rainy, maybe you can time it just right to hit NSR after some decent rains. 

 

NOTE:  Ladonia and apparently many other entry points for NSR are wayyyyyy off the beaten path.  Even if you are quite capable and perfectly happy subsisting on a lunch of convenience store hot dogs, you’d have to drive a surprising distance to find some.  Same with cold water and other snacks.  On a hot day, it might be a very good idea to take a break and sit in an air conditioned car for a half hour or 45 minutes to drive somewhere to get a decent lunch and some cold drinks before returning to NSR to broil as you continue searching.  On the other hand, if you hate wasting any time more than necessary while fossil hunting and the weather isn’t unbearable, then definitely make sure to pack in drinks, lunch and snacks.   

 

Drive to Eisenhower State Park for the night (1 hour). 
 

 If you haven’t quite finished scratching your fossil itch yet, you will be sleeping adjacent to “ammonite beach”.  it is Federal Land so you theoretically can’t collect there (it is also rumored to have been heavily picked over in the past few years), but regardless, you sure can take a short hike over to check it out and take pictures.  If ammonites are on your bucket list, there are rumored to be many other exposures in the vicinity, some reachable only via Lake Texoma (I believe you could rent a boat at the campgrounds) but which also might be technically illegal and others that are off Federal land and thus more legal to collect.  You’d have to get input from locals to point you toward the legal ammonite sites.  

 

If Ammonites are as important to you as mosasaur bones, by all means, shorten your time at NSR and head toward Lake Texhoma earlier so you have several hours for ammonite hunting.  

 

Day 5:  Drive your weary old bones and your trunkful of much older bones back to Omaha.  (10 hours).  

 

If you are one who likes an occasional break in his driving, there are fossiliferous road cuts on or adjacent to I-35 in Southern OK (and probably northern KS too) that might serve to kill 20 minutes as you stretch your legs and try your luck.  Sadly, Central and Northern Ok into southern KS has exclusively Permian exposures that tend to be barren, except for random “jackpot” locations (Waurika, Midco Insect Beds, et al) where very localized conditions allowed for small areas where large quantities of material sometimes fragmentary sometimes fairly complete got preserved.  

 

By no means have all of these “jackpot” locations been found.   I always assumed I lived in a barren area until I stumbled across a news report about a bunch scientifically significant reptile and amphibian trackways that had been discovered 10 years ago during road construction 1 mile from my house.  Having said that, I would only recommend stopping at a Permian exposure on your drive home if your primary goal was stretching your legs and waking up after a long shift behind the wheel and poking around the exposure was something to do while accomplishing the primary goal.  

 

Day 6 to Day 1,000,000:  Enjoy the great memories of your trip.  

 

Summary:  In 3 days of collecting, you will collect fossils of Ordivician, Devonian, Pennsylvanian, Permian, and Cretaceous age, both vertebrates and invertebrates including some of the most iconic (Oklahoma trilobites, Texas shark teeth) fossils out there.  

[flyingpenut]

On 4/23/2021 at 1:52 AM, Kane said:

The best sites are the ones we research ourselves. 

I know for me I would feel really weird about pumping strangers for sites that I should be prospecting myself. That is part of the journey, after all. Up here, I can read geologic maps as well as satellite maps and make my own decisions of where I will go, based on what I want to collect. I suppose I might toss out a lure if I was clueless and without means to make that determination myself, but I usually do my homework so do not require that. 

Correct me if I am wrong but isn’t going to Fossil Forum and similar websites part of the research process. I know many fossil hunters back in the day got great tips at paleontology and fossil group meetings and isnt this is kind of an extension of that? I wouldn’t go on here and blast all the secret location I have to everyone but I think this is a fun idea for public and already well known sites. And on another note, it is always good for the community to pay it forward to the new guys. I love to share a site with a newbie. It gets them involved in the hobby and is more important to me than me hoarding everything I can. Just my personal thoughts. 

 

Edited April 24, 2021 by flyingpenut

[Kane]

2 minutes ago, flyingpenut said:

Correct me if I am wrong but isn’t going to Fossil Forum and similar websites part of the research process. I know many fossil hunters back in the day got great tips at paleontology and fossil group meetings and isnt this is kind of an extension of that? I wouldn’t go on here and blast all the secret location I have to everyone but I think this is a fun idea for public and already well known sites. And on another note, it is always good for the community to pay it forward to the new guys. I love to share a site with a newbie. It gets them involved in the hobby and is more important to me than me hoarding everything I can. Just my personal thoughts. 

 

It certainly is.  I misconstrued the intention of the original post, for which I apologized. I think the intention here was to provide those in lockdown a bit of vicarious joy, and not meant as a means of pumping others for honey holes! We do traffic in site info, but we have to be a bit more careful these days with less productive sites and having those raided by lurkers. I know if I prospected a new site, I'd want to be available to invite trusted others, which I do since I love to share.

 

Like you, I enjoy sharing my sites if I can and not hoarding it all. My focus is science, so I need to obtain enough diagnostic samples that can be donated to a repository for study and formal description. When one invites more commercially oriented collectors, there is a risk that some finds may be lost to science.

[Thomas.Dodson]

8 hours ago, LabRatKing said:

Travel times can be a bit confusing as say, Bismarck ND is 12-14 hours away, but Denver CO is 8.

That is weird. Google Maps has Omaha to Bismarck less than 8.5 hours on the fastest route. 10 hours if you went through SD and traveled through the Missouri River Valley. That also takes you through all the best Fox Hills Formation exposures but like I mentioned before it's primarily private land, at least in North Dakota.

 

There is a good deal of Pierre Shale BLM Land in SD but I haven't yet emailed Eastern Montana/Dakotas District BLM to to see if they allow fossil collecting under permit like other BLM land. It hasn't been an urgent to-do because there isn't much BLM land in ND although there is a little in the Pembina Gorge area that I'd like to take a look at if I get enough free time. Right now calling landowners takes precedence.

 

@BigKen Now that's a worthwhile trip and has several sites that are on my own to-do list someday.

[jpc]

BigKen's  itineraray is great, but I need to make a correction or two.  It is not always illegal to collect on federal lands.  It varies.  A lot.  On BLM and USFS land collecting inverts is OK.  On NPS and NW Refuges, no collecting.  On BuRec lands... no collecting.  And while you mention some state parks and follow that with claiming they are federal land... state and fed is different.  BUT... on dammed lakes (Texoma) the BuRec owns up to a certain high tide line.  That may be different in TX... they have some weird rules there (see for example the electricity failure this past winter).  I don't claim to know the rules at Lake Texoma, for example.  

[BigKen]

4 hours ago, jpc said:

BigKen's  itineraray is great, but I need to make a correction or two.  It is not always illegal to collect on federal lands.  It varies.  A lot.  On BLM and USFS land collecting inverts is OK.  On NPS and NW Refuges, no collecting.  On BuRec lands... no collecting.  And while you mention some state parks and follow that with claiming they are federal land... state and fed is different.  BUT... on dammed lakes (Texoma) the BuRec owns up to a certain high tide line.  That may be different in TX... they have some weird rules there (see for example the electricity failure this past winter).  I don't claim to know the rules at Lake Texoma, for example.  

thank you for clarifying.  I knew there was a checkerboard of regs between different categories of federal land and states all have their own variety of rules.  I tried to stick with things I knew with relative certainty, but I could resist sliding Texoma in there.    I’ve always been told that Texoma was off limits “without permission” and that they no longer grant permission.  That is third hand information so I wouldn’t trust it for myself and wouldn’t recommend anybody else trust it either.  I have regular dealings BOR through my job so, if I get the chance, I will pick the brains of the guys I know to get a clearer answer and/or to see if there are any legal loopholes.  

[val horn]

In terms of lake texoma and ammonite beach  Eisenhower state park is off limits for collecting, but I believe ammonite beach is outside of Eisenhower state park and is legal,  I have collected there and on the otherside of the dam (less Productive).    I was there 2 yrs ago when the reservoir was low, and there were more large ammonites than any thousand people could collect and carry back to a parking site.  Below are two that I kept for myself , other people may be more selective.   Most were large fragments, some where whole and would mostly require extensive digging and rock cutting and a pack mule to carry out.  I was told ( not sure by whom) that oklahoma had more restrictive property rights and therefore more limited collecting by that the dallas palentology society had permissions and collected occasionally--  coordinating  and collecting with the DPS is alot of fun, and they were very kind to me.  

[LabRatKing]

On 4/24/2021 at 5:01 PM, Kane said:

It certainly is.  I misconstrued the intention of the original post, for which I apologized. I think the intention here was to provide those in lockdown a bit of vicarious joy, and not meant as a means of pumping others for honey holes! We do traffic in site info, but we have to be a bit more careful these days with less productive sites and having those raided by lurkers. I know if I prospected a new site, I'd want to be available to invite trusted others, which I do since I love to share.

 

Like you, I enjoy sharing my sites if I can and not hoarding it all. My focus is science, so I need to obtain enough diagnostic samples that can be donated to a repository for study and formal description. When one invites more commercially oriented collectors, there is a risk that some finds may be lost to science.

I too tend to be protective of "my sites", however there are many, many publicly well known locations, most of which are visited by amateurs and pros alike...in the case of this excursion, that is all that is needed. One of the very lucky aspects of my job is to collect specimens for my employer and to scout out locations to take students to for field work.

 

I have many specimens from many locations that I don't share virtually or physically, both to "keep the vandals away" and because many of them are mementos of great experiences in great places.

 

 

 

Anyway! Let's keep those ideas coming folks! I have finished putting the lift and CV joints on the "ScienceMobile" and I should have the skid plates on this weekend...getting ready for Utah and Nevada in July, so weekend excursions are the perfect time to test gear!

[RJB]

Hey Labrat, if you ever go to the west coast, I could certainly help you out.  Would be a grouling drive though.

 

RB

[LabRatKing]

1 hour ago, RJB said:

Hey Labrat, if you ever go to the west coast, I could certainly help you out.  Would be a grouling drive though.

 

RB

 I'll be heading out your way in 2023, my cousin is the entomologist busy hunting down killer hornets these days...and he and I were the science terror hillbilly kids of Northwest PA in the 80s...now we are old and grouchy but still like to camp, fish, hunt bugs and fossils!

 

I live for the drive. Half the fun of any excursion is the road trip there and back...about 20 years ago I used to drive VW bugs older than I coast to coast on PCS orders...

 

In the case of this experiment, it is more about time available, since I'll basically be on the road exploring, fossil hunting, and working on my research pretty much all of July. I just hired a new technician, so by 2023 I can basically travel June through August...I have friends and family all up and down the west coast from my decade stationed out there.

 

Now that I am outfitting an much more appropriate excursion vehicle (as compared to my low and slow 58 VW bug) My range and season will double, but baby steps...

[jpc]

'58 Bug!  My first love was a '67.  Lots of maintenance.  

[Creek - Don]

Regarding Lake Texoma,  lower the water level  you will find more invertebrate fossils.  

I found this video on the Youtube that shows Ammonite Beach. 

 

[LabRatKing]

On 4/27/2021 at 11:30 AM, jpc said:

'58 Bug!  My first love was a '67.  Lots of maintenance.  

I'm just tired of synching carbs every time the weather changes...

[LabRatKing]

UPDATE: 

 

Due a sudden work related excursion, I will have to put this idea on hold for a bit.

 

Sorry gang, but worm hunting season only lasts a few weeks and I was able to secure access to a specific set of sites over the holiday weekend as the construction crews will be off. Been trying to get to those vernal pools for years!