NJ Big Brook, Rochester Shale, and NY Southern Tier

[Rock-Guy-17]

A trip report from a busy week that started with combing through some drilling cores of the Rochester Shale that were being dumped from an old project. No major finds, which was what I expected. I did happen to find a nice Dalmanities pygidium and a few brachiopods that look neat. This weekend I was down in NJ visiting family and took a stop to Big Brook on Saturday. Thank you to a kind member of this forum for giving me hunting advice. Saturday was very rainy, but the rainwater washing the sand off the gravel bar was helpful in my search. I am not familiar with a lot of these fossils, I have tried my best to use online resources to ID what I have. Finally, this week I am in the southern tier near Olean and working near a stream that is on private property. The stream is loaded with brachiopod fossils, hoping to grab a nice piece that hasn't been weathered and stained. A lot of pictures below, ID help is greatly appreciated.

 

 

1. Rochester Shale cores drying, revealing some weaker fractures. 

 

Finds from Big Brook:

I tried to organize these from left to right for ID help

 

2. Vert and turtle shell piece?

 

 

3. I tried to put everything small I did not know in this picture. First tooth in row 2 and the last tooth in row 4 are ones that I am especially having trouble with. Each item here has some feature that is telling me that it is more than just a rock, but I could be wrong.

 

4. Best teeth that I found, very happy with these.

 

 

5. Hoping row one is coprolite. Row two could be other bone pieces?  

 

6. Ray teeth, sawfish and other unknowns

 

7. Bones? 

 

8. Bone looking r ock?

 

9. Crab claw and a few other unknowns. No serrations or teeth-like features on these unknowns. 

 

 

10. Concretions? 

 

 

Southern Tier Field Pic

 

11. According to maps I am in the Late Devonian, Conneaut Group. Someone told me small sea stars can be found in this similar looking southern tier fossilized strata. Not going to hold my breath. 

 

 

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Interesting finds. 

Thanks for sharing. 

[EMP]

Cool stuff! I'm interested to see what comes out of the Rochester drill holes.

 

A lot of the brachiopod fragments look pretty indiscriminate, but I think I see some Cyrtospirifer fragments. As for sea stars/brittle stars, they have been found in late Devonian rocks like that. I found a few trace fossils from them from the Brallier Formation. Body fossils tend to be rare, but luckily their trace fossils are pretty distinct and they can be fairly common in some layers. I wouldn't rule it out entirely. 

 

 

The trace fossil is on the bottom left, taken from the MGS' report. 

Edited May 26, 2023 by EMP

[Rock-Guy-17]

I was unable to spend significant time in that river, no finds worth posting about. Here is what I found from the Rochester Shale cores:

 

Dalmanites pygidium:

 

Brachiopods: 

 

unknown:

 

[Dino2033]

This one from big brook is probably the claw of a ghost shrimp called Protocallinassa mortoni (Pilsbry)