Beltzville State Park, PA

[I_gotta_rock]

Beltzville State Park is one of those rare parks where collecting is allowed. The adjacent federal land, owned and operated by the Corps of Engineers to operate the dam there, is accessible ONLY WITH A PERMIT. It is a functioning spillway and there is a gun range for the local police, so you and USACE need to make sure you are safe. 

 

With that important disclaimer out of the way, here's the good stuff!

Beltzville is a very productive Middle Devonian site which includes the PA State Fossil, the trilobite Eldredgeops rana. Although no one in the group found any definite complete buggies, a lot of froglike trilo faces went home in our buckets! It wasn't all trilos, though. We found bryozoa, corals, pteria oysters, gastropods, crinoids and probably a dozen kinds of brachiopods. 

 

I led this trip for the Natural History Society of Maryland. The trip director made this lovely video of our day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdB5atWQmeQ

Yes, I realized about 20 minutes after she took that video of me showing off the pop-outs that I was holding the fronts of the cephalons of one species, not the eyeballs of the other. This is what I get for not looking with my reading glasses first!

 

Most of my finds I gave to whoever was sitting closest to me, but here are a few I kept.

 

 

 

[frankh8147]

Nice finds!!

[Plax]

Good to see folks out collecting!