1998 Geology Field Camp Finds

[Missourian]

In 1998, I partook in a geology field camp that placed me in South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. There were a few opportunities to collect fossils along the way.

While staying in Rapid City, we spent a day collecting fossils in the badlands. Although I would have liked a few more days and a bag of plaster, we only had time to surface collect. And surface collect we did. Because we were on restricted forest service land, bones were scattered all over the place. It was a good day.

Titanotheres were present in the Eocene Chadron Formation. I found vertebrae, leg and toe bones, and teeth. The vertebra was one of six or seven overall, but I could carry only so much....

Vertebra:

Leg bone end:

Toe bone:

Tooth:

Above the Chadron was the Brule Formation, which features Oreodonts. I picked up a couple fairly nice jaw fragments:

And some leg and toe bones:

And some other bones....:

Some others in the group found ammonites in the underlying Cretaceous Pierre Shale, but not me.

Although collecting here is normally off limits, we were allowed to keep our finds. The only condition was that every specimen had to be photographed and recorded.

While in Rapid City, we also mapped the area around Bear Butte near Sturgis. There was an oyster bed in the Jurassic Sundance Formation that was a useful stratigraphic marker, but none were worth taking home. I did, though, find some belemnite fragments:

[Missourian]

Moving on, we eventually made it to Dillon, Montana. We spent a week or so mapping a scenic area near Block Mountain (not my photo):

A limestone member of the Cretaceous Kootenai Formation had abundant Turitella gastropods, which served as a stratigraphic marker:

A big surprise was this brittle star I found in limestone of the Triassic Dinwoody Formation:

Up close and personal:

I'd never found a brittle star before or since, but yet I found this within a vast outcropping that was otherwise barren of fossils. Go figure....

The Morrison Formation was also present, but no dinosaurs for us.

[Terry Dactyll]

Looks like you had a very productive collecting trip...and a day collecting the badlands must of been a fantastic experience...Thanks for sharing your finds with us...

[squalicorax]

Wow a brittle star in the THAYNES !!!

Dang that is really cool. I spent 3 weeks of my summer in the thaynes and only saw brachiopods ammonites and bivalves!

[PRK]

For some reason I'm really attracted to locality overviews. Yours is great!

Totally different badlands than I expected.

Edited January 1, 2013 by PRK