Jump to content

Sometimes You Have To Freeze Thaw


RCFossils

Recommended Posts

In a nod to Ralph’s entertaining post, I thought that I would start a thread that I can continue to add on to over the upcoming months.

With the Pit Eleven collecting season coming to a close, I decided to venture out one more time before the season ends on September 30th.

Pit Eleven is a difficult site to collect due to the heavy overgrowth (lots of thorny plants), uneven terrain and did I mention the bugs. Late Summer/early Fall is especially tricky because unlike the Spring, the vegetation is in full growth obscuring many of the areas that can produce early in the year.

The one upside is that the lake water level is a bit lower so I decided to explore a few more out of the way areas that I do not search very often.

It paid off in a big way. In just a few hours, I was able to collect 514 concretions! 

Many have nice shapes and I might even have a Tully or two.

While it is likely that at least half of them will be “duds” I have a decent chance of having something rarer pop open.

Since we will be heading into the Winter months soon, I thought it might be fun and informative to share the results of my freeze/thaw cycles with the forum.

I will try to update this post with each cycle (probably around once a week) posting pictures of any interesting finds.

I will also keep a record of all plants and animals found in the 514 concretions.

In my experience, most of the better quality fossils will usually split open within the first 20 cycles.

I am currently soaking the concretions for a few days and will buy them in my chest freezer early next week.

I did find a few concretions that had already split open that I am not including in this count.

Two were the common Essexella, one Aviculopecten, one coprolite and a few small plant fragments.

I also found an interesting artifact. A section of rail line (approximately 30”) from the old mine carts.

Here are a few pictures of the concretions.


Enjoy!


 

2890DD4F-4899-4AAE-9DAA-AA90C101CE97.jpeg

33F24D63-DFB1-41CF-A82E-236CBD252846.jpeg

E9E54708-F262-42F6-B31F-4AFF29B8F758.jpeg

1BB24A3E-31DD-4876-A60E-19559B56AD3E.jpeg

  • Enjoyed 15
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Looking forward to updates! Good luck on finding that tully. I just had an interesting thought: if you find one good enough for fossil of the month, do you submit it as an invert or vertebrate fossil? :zzzzscratchchin:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, EPIKLULSXDDDDD said:

Looking forward to updates! Good luck on finding that tully. I just had an interesting thought: if you find one good enough for fossil of the month, do you submit it as an invert or vertebrate fossil? :zzzzscratchchin:

I am still a strong believer that is an invertebrate.

The body plan is just too radically different for it to be an agnathan.

Also every other fish found in the deposit is relatively small (usually a few inches).

Larger fish are present but usually just bits and pieces are found.

Tullies are generally fairly complete.leading me to believe that their body was different then that of a fish.

  • I found this Informative 1
  • I Agree 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ooooooh another one of these? @Nimravis you've got competition now :BigSmile: I'm getting my popcorn. Following for sure though, I love these types of posts!

Fossils? I dig it. :meg:

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sounds like fun. Hurry, hurry, hurry. But take your time and make sure you soak them long enough!

  • I Agree 1

 

 

Mark.

 

Fossil hunting is easy -- they don't run away when you shoot at them!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is great Rob, can’t wait to see what pops. Hopefully you will have some great finds. On a side note, I will be picking up some concretions next week that were recently freeze / thawed by my friend that I recently bought the collection from. He stated that a complete Tully popped and he believes that there are one or two insects. These are all from Pit 11 and collected in the 80’s and 90’s. I will post them on my thread once I get them.

  • Enjoyed 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just a quick update.

I made another trip to Pit Eleven yesterday searching some more areas.

It paid off big time. I managed to collect an additional 816 concretions bringing the total to 1330!

The first batch has been soaking and will go into the freezer today.

I will freeze for 3-4 days and see if anything splits open.

 

0AD165E9-A3E9-48BB-8163-1830EF5F4E8D.jpeg

  • Enjoyed 8
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Rob- I was wondering how your freeze/thaw is going.

 

I have been freeze/thawing these concretions from Pit 11 since 7-12-2022. I have gone through a number of cycles and no luck so far. I am betting that all of the concretions contain Tully Monsters, I received them in the collection that I purchased. The small one has and exposed transverse bar at the top of the concretion, but do not have the other portion and the middle section is still covered.

 

D26BBBB3-702B-48D4-A8C8-3F3DC7A84E2D.thumb.jpeg.b7228eb27b6afb9e36e29e7ff915b276.jpeg

 

82A261C7-E665-40B0-9567-C932DA2A6FEA.thumb.jpeg.a4765a62ca53c72081bbcdf490521a7d.jpeg

  • Enjoyed 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

How long have you soaked them before freezing? I would go 2-1/2 to 3 weeks on concretions of this size with the matrix density common to Pit 11.

 

 

Mark.

 

Fossil hunting is easy -- they don't run away when you shoot at them!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, Mark Kmiecik said:

How long have you soaked them before freezing? I would go 2-1/2 to 3 weeks on concretions of this size with the matrix density common to Pit 11.

I will try that Mark- Thanks

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

I apologize in advance for not updating this post.

I had grand plans to update regularly as things popped open however due to my schedule and family commitments, it did not pan out.

I guess to start, things had been pretty disappointing. Out of the 1300 plus concretions, I would estimate around 20 plus percent turned out to be shale instead of siderite. These concretions, while having excellent shapes, disintegrated without anything other than a few plant fragments being preserved.

To date, I have performed around 15 freeze/thaw cycles.

The majority of the fauna which I was finding was generally poorly preserved.

There have been some nice plants that have split which has kept things interesting.

I probably still have about half of the concretions left and will continue to freeze thaw.

The majority of the fauna that has split open has been the extremely common Jellyfish/anemone Essexella asherae. I would estimate that I have opened over 50 in this group. 
Other fauna that I have so far opened are as follows.

2 Octomedusa pieckorum jellyfish (1very nice example with excellent tentacles.

Several bivalve’s (Mazonomya mazonensis, Myalinella meeki and Aviculopecten mazonensis).

Polychaete worm Didontogaster cordylina

Sea cucumber Achistrum sp (none complete).

Arrow worm Paucijaculum samamithion

Spoon worm Coprinoscolex ellogimus

Cyclus americanus 

Shrimp Palaeocaris typus

Several shrimp molts

Coprolites (some containing bone bits)

One surprise that I will save until the end.

Here are some examples of Essexella.

 

C0AD5370-8E40-4C71-A726-8B0BC22F012F.jpeg

41BCACE8-7FFF-4CF3-B328-E7E784EF9E77.jpeg

F9AFF5AF-4A74-4C3C-8779-192405E07057.jpeg

A47343C7-80EB-4B64-A70C-2FBA631BC2FB.jpeg

  • Enjoyed 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On Tuesday, I had a very lucky break.

I was going through my buckets and found an Aistopod!

To those not familiar with Mazon Creek fauna, this might appear to be a section of a stem.

It is actually a legless amphibian named Phlegethontia longissima.

If you look carefully, the white line are the vertebrae. The soft tissue of the body is also preserved.

Unfortunately, it is just a section of the body but it is still a very rare find.

I was fortunate to have found a more complete example several years ago.

It is estimated that only one in a million Mazon Creek concretions will contain an amphibian so i feel very fortunate to have found 2.

62613065-CC58-4380-AEDC-8AAD3FCEFDF9.png

6B2DC4E1-1041-4E97-869B-57416D9B15E7.jpeg

803CB4E2-18CD-4013-BD04-5BE33E8A7545.png

0D3D45B6-26B9-42ED-9D72-A8D42AB1E8A8.png

  • I found this Informative 3
  • Enjoyed 12
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow, congrats!  I wonder how many get thrown away as plant stems...

 

Cheers,

Rich

 

Edited by stats
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...