2022 season opener Devonian of New York

[mikeymig]

2022 Fossil Collecting Season

 

Our season started out great with a warm 63 degree day here in New York State. We often don't dig on our first collecting trip of the season Its more of a surface collecting trip just to scout out the area and see what winter has exposed for us. I had my geology hammer of course but no mini sledge, chisels, or pry bars. One of my favorite things to find in early spring are colonies of Bryozoa (Atactotoechus frutiosus). You have to collect every little piece of the colony and reassemble them back it home. This will take anywhere from an hour to many hours over days and in this case over a week so far. You never know how they will look until you start matching up the pieces and hope that you got them all. I picked up around 255 pieces from a colony that I found on this day and thought I got most if not all of the colony. It was a slow start reassembling it then I found my rhythm. It started to become clear after a week of working on it that I was missing a bunch of pieces. Yesterday 4/24/2022 we went back to the site, dug in the shale were we found the colony, and found a bunch of the missing pieces. This time I did have the proper tools to complete the job  We also found a large and well preserved Orthospirifer marcyi with attached Pleurodictyum coral and other Devonian brachs, trilobites, corals, a graptolite (modern Sea Fan for comparison in the pic), and of course Bryozoa colonies. The pics of the Bryozoa colony are - pieces from the first day, after a week of puzzling them back together, and yesterdays recovery of the rest of the colony (white tray).

Happy Collecting 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Love the reconstruction of that bryozoan colony. 

[Fossildude19]

Great finds and assembly, Mikey! Good to see you out there doing your thing. 

 

 

[Mark Kmiecik]

But did you find any bryozoans?  Nice brachiopod! Thanks for posting pic of what you found. Thoroughly enjoyable. I like the reconstruction. 

[Jeffrey P]

Hey Mike! Great finds. The Dictyonema is very impressive. That bryozoan is shaping up magnificently. Quite the puzzle. Love to see it when it's done. Thanks for sharing. 

[Wrangellian]

I like them all, probably the graptolite the most     What is that thing next to the hammer... some kind of bivalve?

Good that you were able to go back and find more pieces. Whenever I have pulled something out in pieces, I always hope I've got them all, and then later find out that there is at least one crucial piece missing, and it's rarely possible to go back and find it (esp. if it's tiny).

Edited May 13, 2022 by Wrangellian