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Penn Dixie and Trenton Group Trip


KompsFossilsNMinerals

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Hi all, about 2 weeks ago during my spring break my father and I made the 6 hour trip up to Buffalo NY to collect at Penn Dixie.  Our main focus is to bring back blocks for our weathering pile in the back yard, so we worked from around 11am to 5pm moving chunks and transporting them to the car.  

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Here is a photo of me driving a wedge into the huge row of rock we were working on, it was pinned and took probably 30 min and a lot of thinking to break it free.

 

 

Ill attach photos of some finds from the day below.


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Disarticulated Eldredgeops and a complete Greenops (I have done some exploratory prep and uncovered a genal spine)

 

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Another Eldredgeops

 

 

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This beautiful prone Eldredgeops had an unfortunate encounter with Murphy’s Law, and when I tried to split down the chunk to a more manageable size the whole bug shattered.  In hindsight I should’ve just deadlifted the rock as a whole into my wagon, but hindsight is 50/50.

 


The next day was a bit short, we had pretty much ran out of room for chunks and I was sunburnt and fatigued (Despite regularly applying sunscreen and drinking lots of Gatorade).  If you zoom in on the image below you can see the sunburn on my arm.

 

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View of the spot we were digging before we leave (Kompsfossilsnminerals for scale)

 

 

As we were packing up, I started tapping on some of the rock from the layer above where we were working.  On my second or third chunk, this beautiful Eldredgeops rana popped out!  
 

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Only missing a little of the cephalon’s shell as well as an eye, which I think I can recover from the negative.

 

1/2

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2/2

 

As we were leaving Penn Dixie, I decided to hit @Nautiloid and I’s highly productive Trenton Group site, “La Familia Quarry”.  We have found complete specimens of Triarthrus, Gravicalymene, Isotelus, and Hypodicranotus (you can find a photo of the Hypodi on Owen’s Instagram or his FOTM entry).  

 

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Gravicalymenes and Triarthrus from La Familia Quarry

 

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A weathered half of a monster Isotelus!

 

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As well as a beautiful fully complete meraspid Isotelus!

 

 

On that day I was hyper focused on one section of the site where @Dean Ruocco and I have both found complete Isotelus gigas’, both over 6 inches in length.  

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My super janky Isotelus from the layer, all the shell is missing.  


 

In my first 10 minutes of digging I split open a large plate and found this!

 

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An Isotelus gigas caught inbetween two plates!

 

I tried to save as much shell as I could but unfortunately a lot of it managed to escape.  I should have stopped everything and put any and all pieces associated with the plate in a bag sooner than I did.

 

After finding this, we did a bit more digging but decided to take a break in a more shady area as the sun was beating down on us in that one spot.  We didn’t find much of anything but we tried to stay on the same layer which the previous 3 Isotelus gigas were found on.  
 

Once I got home I got to work putting most of the Isotelus back together, a good chunk of the lower half of the bug’s shell is stuck in the negative and most of the upper half shattered and wasn’t recovered.  Despite this, it is still a beautiful example of an Isotelus!

 

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Hopefully future visits to this spot will produce even better Isotelus with shell that separates from the negative a bit better.  Only way to find out is to dig!

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Lots of great bugs in this post man!! I love seein some beautiful LF bugs. I’m fiendin to get back out in the field with you :Jumping:

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14 minutes ago, Nautiloid said:

Lots of great bugs in this post man!! I love seein some beautiful LF bugs. I’m fiendin to get back out in the field with you :Jumping:

 

Just now, Dean Ruocco said:

Awesome bugs Chris! Always good to be bangin hammers with you!


Thanks guys!!! We gotta collect there again soon!

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