Mazon gold mine or discard pile?

[Sauropod19]

Hello. I’m currently at Mazon and after about 1 1/2 hours of intermittent hiking and searching, I found a hillside that seems to be rife with concretions. I’m somehow lucky enough to have a tiny bit of cell service.

 

 

I am concerned, however, that I have stumbled upon someone’s discard pile rather than a concretion gold mine. Most of the 100+ concretions were found either on the surface or very slightly embedded in the soil within a 30 foot radius, and most have jagged edges and are only half a concretion. A couple have even been larger than my hand. As such, I know it is difficult to tell without being here, but is it more likely that I’ve found an area where concretions have been exposed and opened naturally or have I stumbled upon someone’s recent search area? Thank you!

 

P. S. I brought these together in one pile from around to demonstrate the majority of my finds.

 

In situ:

 

 

Large:

 

[connorp]

The shapes you've posted are not very good. The big plates are almost certainly empty.

[Sauropod19]

Yup, I started figuring that out with some scrubbing haha. Thank you for checking it out though!

[connorp]

To expand: the big plates in the Essex (marine) biota (which includes Pit 11, where you were at) are generally blank. I've never seen one with anything inside. On the other hand, if you ever collect the Braidwood (terrestrial) biota, big plates can occasionally have large plants.