1st time visit to Penn Dixie

[RandyB]

My wife and I traveled up to western upstate NY this past weekend for Penn Dixie's annual dig with the experts event.  This was our first visit to the park and we were happy to finally use up the tickets we had originally purchased for the 2020 dig.

 

The event was sold out both days and the staff seemed happy to be back in normal operations. The weather was perfect, with bright sunny skies and temps in the 50s to 60s day 1 and 60s to low 70s day 2.

 

Lots of folks digging:

 

We didn't find anything crazy good, but didn't get blanked with a mix of brachiopods, cephalopods, clams, crinoid stem pieces, corals, trilobites and a partial phyllocarid. 

 

Mostly brachiopods with some horn corals:

and mostly horn corals with a couple brachiopods:

Hash plate of mostly brachiopods, needs cleanup so was hard to photograph:

Another clump with multiple brachiopods:

I was told clams didn't preserve as well at this location and I certainly didn't find many samples worth collecting:

Nice 3d partial cephalopod, not sure how much is in the matrix, but both sides have similar levels of detail and this was by far the largest one we found:

Good sampling of crinoid stem pieces plus a few others. My wife really liked the ones with a star shape in the middle. This is probably half of what we collected, though my wife did get some longer segments:

Trilobite hash, not sure if any are complete:

Double rollers:

Not sure how much of this one is here and it does have a fine crack throughit, but should be easy to glue:

Not sure if there is more on this one:

Guillotine plate, nothing but heads...

This one hurt, disarticulated but likely complete up top, then what would have been a perfect prone below if the excavator hadn't decapitated it as they created the dig piles:

Full but squished and a little ragged on left, looks like complete roller on right:

Closer shot of the one from above, he makes a 90 degree turn but looks to be complete:

Another roller:

Possibly mostly complete:

Roller on upper piece, small horn coral on lower:

Nice roller:

Disarticulated molt:

Could be complete:

 

This last split is a little tough to see, I bumped the contrast a bit. Multiple dig experts identified it as a phyllocarid (and none dissented) which made me happy as that was the only thing I could come up with and staff said are a rare find there.  Its my 1st, the only one I had seen before was one of @Al Tahan finds from central NY.

 

Edited June 8, 2022 by RandyB

[Fossildude19]

Nice report! Some very good finds as well.

The phyllocarid is a very interesting find. Well done.

Congratulations, and thanks for sharing.

[Tidgy's Dad]

You did pretty well, I think 

Lots of variety and some really nice finds 

Good luck with the prepping 

[deutscheben]

Sounds like a great day! Looks like you had some very solid finds for your first time.

[JamieLynn]

thanks for the report! I have had fun with micromatrix from Penn Dixie so it's cool to see some of "in the field". 

[Sjfriend]

Good trip. And I too hate finding beheaded trilobites! Being from out west i would like to visit but probably never will 

[Kane]

Looks like you got the sampler of the layers there, congrats! That brach layer is ridiculously plentiful, as you discovered. Although the draw is the trilobites, the brachs are also quite a wonder. You have some trilobites there that will turn out quite nice with prep. 

[FranzBernhard]

Thanks for sharing your experience and your finds !

Hope, you enjoyed the crowd somewhat. Personally, this situation would be my fossil nightmare... Seeing this, I am feeling so glad having dozens of sites for me alone.

Franz Bernhard

[bockryan]

Great finds! Hopefully see you there again next year, I'm eagerly awaiting a Dremel in the mail to try my hand at cleaning up a few of my trilobites

[Jeffrey P]

Congrats on a very productive first trip to PD. Like some of the others, I too am impressed with the brachiopods. A lot of partial Eldredgeops is typical for PD. One or a few complete ones can make it feel like a worthwhile time. Thanks for sharing. 

[Misha]

Great report! And it looks like you got some pretty good finds, I especially love the brachiopods, but the phyllocarid is very cool too, don't see those too often at that formation.

I'm hoping to make it back out there this summer, it was such a great trip when we visited last time and I would like to check out some of the other spots around there with nice fossils too.

 

[Neanderthal Shaman]

Cool, would love to go there someday