My Pre-Memorial Day Collecting Trip In W. New York

[Shamalama]

So last weekend I decided to take a trip up to the Buffalo Area with plans to head into Canada and collect. Well, the day I was to drive into the Great White North I realized I'd forgotten my passport (Dang CRS disease!). Soooo.... I changed up my schedule a bit which gave me the opportunity to spend a full day at Penn Dixie, explore a new site that I'd only been told about and spend a day with forum member Mikeymig.

I drove up Thursday and spent the afternoon playing on the lake Erie shoreline at 18 Mile Creek.

Along the cliffs I found some falls of the higher up strata above the Tichenor limestone and Windom shale. It was Upper Devonian material from (presumably) the Sonyea Formation (Cashaqua Shale), the black Middlesex Shale of the Genesee Formation with the gray West River Shale and the Genundewa and North Evans Limestones. Thanks to Karl Wilson's site for detailing the formations above the Moscow. Normally I only encounter these formations when traipsing upstream in 18 Mile Creek but I was able to access them by walking a couple miles south along the shore line (a bit easier walk than trying to navigate the creek itself).

A portion of a carbonized tree that I think is in the Middlesex Shale.

Goniatites from either then Genundewa Ls. or the Cashaqua shales.

I'm fairly confident that these are Goniatites and not gastropods because of the following that I read in the "Geology and Paleontology of Eighteen Mile Creek", by A.W.Grabau, Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences, Pg. 7,8

The Gray Naples Shales (Cashaqua shales).-These shales are greenish gray in color, much less fissile than the preceding, and prone to weather into a tenacious clay..... The upper fifteen feet of these shales, while rich in concretions, seem to be very poor in organic remains, no fossils having been noted in them. ... (the beds) forming a prominent band in the main section, is a layer of calcareous concretions, or better a concretionary bed of impure limestone, eight inches in thickness. This probably corresponds to J. M. Clarke's "Goniatite concretionary layer, " in as much as specimens of Goniatites are of common occurrence in it, usually forming the nucleus of the concretion. Several species of Goniatites occur, but they are seldom found in a good state of preservation. They are commonly found in a very much compressed condition, frequently perfectly flattened, and from having been replaced by iron pyrites which subsequently oxidized, much, if not all of the structure is obliterated. The external form and amount of involution therefore become the only characters by which to identify the species, and this, at best, can be but an unsatisfactory identification. In a few cases, in the specimens collected, the septal sutures are shown, allowing a more precise determination. The most abundant and characteristic species of Goniatites in these concretions are Goniatites intumescens (Beyr.) and G.lutheri (Clarke). The non-umbilicated species are rare, a single doubtful specimen having been noted.

I added the italics to the relevant portion of the text.

Friday morning I awoke and realized that I'd left my Passport at home. After some frantic e-mailing to Malcolmt and Northernsharks, who were expecting me at sites this weekend, I decided to spend the day at Penn Dixie. Carmine (Xonenine) had mentioned that the club had recently excavated the trilobite beds a little more and I wanted to try my luck again. They had indeed dug the drainage trench deeper and removed some of the overlying layers on top of the "Smoke Creek Trilobite Bed" that is the big attraction for collectors. One of the beds the removed is a brachiopod rich layer and I had some fun splitting up rock from there looking for large inflated Spinatrypa and Pseudoatrypa. Much of the newly exposed Trilobite layers were off limits due to a special event the club was hosting on Saturday, a "Dig with the Experts" where one could come in and dig with experienced club members. Many members were in the excavation area pulling up blocks of the layer to be put into piles for the next day. The idea was to make it a little easier for amateur collectors to get access to the layer without requiring heavy tools and crowding the work pit. They had another area where similar rock had been dug last fall and allowed to weather some so I took a crack and looking in that material for some Trilobites and I did have some success:

Continued in next post....

[Shamalama]

More pics of my finds from Penn Dixie:

Too bad this Greenops didn't come out better...

A typical Mediospirifer pedicle valve but one that was fairly large and intact...

I'm not sure if this is a Crinoid hold fast or the base of a calyx, any ideas?

After a day in the sun at Penn Dixie I spent the next day in some relative shade. I wanted to check out a site that Sue_in_Ohio had told me about in Alden, NY. It is a creek side exposure of the Ludlowville formation that has access to the Alden Pyrite bed. Here is a view of the site:

The collector in the distance is a local fellow named Rich who was busily mining the pyrite layer just above the water line when I arrived. He told me he'd only recently found the site but was having fun collecting the pyrite nodules and cracking them open to see what fossils were inside. While I was there he made a couple of great finds of orthoconic cephalopods preserved in pyrite. As for my finds, check the next post...

[Shamalama]

I picked around the loose shale piles to see what I could find. I like to do that at a new site to get a feel for what can be found and study the exposed layers to see where best to collect. I managed to find a nice sized Tornoceras glistening in golden Pyrite, a gastropod (Bembexia ?) and a Pelecypod (maybe Nuculites).

Tornoceras

Pelecypod

Gastropod

After searching in some of the piles I started to notice some trilobite parts, notably of Greenops. I started to follow these parts to a section of the exposed strata and started to split the rock. It wasn't long before I found a nice whole Greenops trilobite in prone position preserved with a white calcitic shell.

I kept splitting and found a few more Greenops specimens and then this little Phacops popped out

I spent another hour or two splitting rock and had seemed to ID a particular layer where the whole trilobites seemed to be coming from. After a while I got tired of splitting and decided to call it a day at this site. Here was most of my take

I wanted to head to a couple of nearby sites to collect some eroded matrix to search for micro material. One of the sites is a rails to trails site that cut through a lower section of the Ludlowville formation (below the Alden pyrite beds I had just been at). I collected a bucket full of eroded sediment and then walked to another part of the trail where the Centerfield limestone member of the Ludlowville was exposed. This is always fun to surface search for well preserved rugose corals and brachiopods. My find of that site was this juvenile Favosites turbinatus which had a secondary growth of some stromatoporoid (?)on the side.

I gathered a bucket of the eroded remnants of the Centerfield as well and then headed back to my hotel. Sunday I was spending the day collecting with Mikeymig and I was looking forward to learning some more about the local collecting sites and geology.

[Shamalama]

Ok, this should be the last post. Sunday I was to meet Mikeymig near Retsof, NY. I wanted to hit a nearby exposure of the Kashong member of the Moscow formation to collect brachs and a bucket of eroded sediment to later hunt for micros. We met at a local gas station and proceeded to the site. Mikey showed me a new way to get there which cut down on the hike from where I used to access it from. I met his girlfriend and daughter as well both of whom turned out to be interested in collecting some too. Mikey's daughter had the find of the site with a crushed Devonoblastus blastoid that was almost the size of my thumb! I didn't know one could find blastoids at this site and did my best to scope one out. The best I was able to do was this portion of a crushed specimen:

Nucleocrinus?

I did find this cool specimen of a Pleurodictyum that was growing on a crinoid stem.

Once finished at the site we piled back into our vehicles and Mikey took me to one of his sweet spots. We hiked down a creek about a quarter mile and a huge 50' high cliff face greeted me. It was Moscow formation, Windom shale the whole way up as was much thicker of a section than what is exposed at 18 Mile Creek and Lake Erie. Mikey showed me a layer that he commonly finds trilobites in and I settled in to try and extract some chunks of matrix to split. Mikey's daughter and girlfriend were having fun surface collecting the eroded corals and brachs that had fallen from the cliff face and I was quickly distracted so I joined it. We wandered down stream a bit to a slope where the cliff was less steep and had quite a bit of fallen debris forming a scree field. Mikey scrambled up it and told me that this was where he often found fully inflated Mediospirifer specimens. I have been wanting a nice specimen of that brachiopod for my collection for a while now as the specimens I get from Penn Dixie are usually just a single valve or have one valve (typically the brachial) invariably crushed. It wasn't long before I found a specimen that looked like the brach had grown on the lip of a coral so that it was "teed up".

I certainly hope that the two specimens are indeed in "life" positions because that makes this specimen much more special.

Among all the rugose coral and brachiopod specimens that were scattered on the slope I found a few specimens of Spinatrypa that had their shells crushed but, remarkably, had their vaunted spines still attached.

I clambered down the slope and Mikey lead us back upstream to some other outcrops where we were looking for Trilobites. He really schooled me by pulling up a random piece of bedrock that was in the stream bed and split it to reveal a beauty of a Greenops. We spent another couple of hours splitting rock and exploring the creek but found no more complete trilobites. It was getting on in the afternoon and I needed to head to my hotel so I could shower before dinner. We said our goodbyes but not before I left a few of the Greenops trilobites I'd found the day before with Mikey to see if he could prep them into some impressive specimens. Luckily I was spending the night in nearby Rochester so I got to eat at Dinosaur Barbeque which was a welcome end to my trip. I headed home on Monday with a carload of fossils.

I may have forgotten my passport and missed a chance to get Eurypterids at Ridgemont and collect at Arkona and Brechin, but what I did find more than made up for it. Plus I got to spend time with another new friend from the Forum. Thanks for showing me your cool sites Mikey!

[RickNC]

Very cool. I'll be in W. NY this summer and plan on seeing what I can find. I'll be way out of my element.

[Fossildude19]

Wow, Dave!

Spectacular finds - that Greenops will be sweet once prepped out!

Congratulations on a well deserved haul!

Regards,

[xonenine]

terrific report Dave, glad you had a fun trip!

[erose]

Some wicked fossils. The Spinatrypa with spines would have been enough alone. Those white trilobites look fragile. It will be interesting to see how the prep.

Thanks for an excellent report.

[Shamalama]

Thanks guys. It was a very fun trip and I'm longing to go back already!

[Uncle Siphuncle]

ya done good!

[hrguy54]

Great finds!

[Plantguy]

Great posts Dave! Enjoyed reading the details about the trip and seeing the photos and learning something about those sites and finds! Regards, Chris

[fossilcrazy]

Some nice specimens were gathered. I think the tabulate coral growing on the Crinoid stem isn't a Pleurodictyum, but a closely related species called Antholites speciosus.

[lissa318]

Congrats on the finds!!! They are wonderful!

[Shamalama]

Thank you for the kind words everyone!

Some nice specimens were gathered. I think the tabulate coral growing on the Crinoid stem isn't a Pleurodictyum, but a closely related species called Antholites speciosus.

I was thinking that too when I first found the specimen but there is an epitheca on the underside which leads me to think it's Pleurodictyum.

Most Antholites specimens I've found have the coralites clustered all the way around the crinoid stem since they colonized it white the 'noid was still alive. This specimen instead looks like a fallen piece of stem that the Pleurodictyum colonized on the sea floor. the fact that the epitheca extends away from the stem indicates there was some substrate upon which it could expand.

[Vordigern]

Beautiful finds!!!

[Ludwigia]

Great report, Dave! Looks like you were meant to forget your passport otherwise you might not have had such a successful trip

[mikeymig]

Glad you had fun and I was happy to take out collecting that day. Your Crinoid from Penn Dixie is the basal cup of an Arthroacantha and your right about the Goniatites. I find them in the Upper Devonian Hatch formation like that. Here is that Greenops I found with you when we were waiting for my girls to catch up to us. According to Whiteley, Kloc, and Brett it’s a yet undescribed species (Trilobites of New York, 2002, plate 56). I hope you like how your Brach cluster from Penn Dixie turned out! It stands up on its own and makes for a very aesthetic display specimen.

Keep in touch and happy collecting!

Mikey

[mikeymig]

It looks like a trophy to me!

Mikey

[Shamalama]

Mikey, that looks awesome! The inflated Medio is great since that came from PD and I don't find many like that there. Is that a partial Spinatrypa in the middle?

That is a sweet Greenops you found too. I hope the ones I left with you don't crumble apart. I still haven't unwrapped the ones I brought home for fear they will fall apart.

[sue in ohio]

Awesome trip Dave and even more awesome finds..I'm glad you found that site ok..this time of the year the trails can be hard to navigate with the overgrown, especially the wild rosebushes..I've been ripped up pretty good many times from them transversing through there. If you ever go back and try collecting upstream, especially around a pronounced bend in the creek be very careful because I got into some almost-like quicksand and sunk to my knees in seconds, I had to scamper out of my boots then dig them out from along the bank, lol. Most of the creek is very shallow but just be careful..next step you just never know. How was the skeeties?? Were they out and eating you alive yet??

In the upper layers of the exposure was where I found the better trilos and portions of them but it's a pain trying to get up there and stay in place while trying to search. The bottom of the exposure is where you'll find the pyrite beds. Was my pits still visible?? It's backbreaking work but there's beautiful specimens to be found. If you go down stream a bit there is another large exposure along the lefthand side of the creek but I didn't find much there compared with that upstream bank.

Edited May 29, 2013 by sue in ohio

[mikeymig]

Mikey, that looks awesome! The inflated Medio is great since that came from PD and I don't find many like that there. Is that a partial Spinatrypa in the middle?

That is a sweet Greenops you found too. I hope the ones I left with you don't crumble apart. I still haven't unwrapped the ones I brought home for fear they will fall apart.

It looks like a Spinatrypa to me and due to the fact that the other two brachs are inflated and complete, I wonder if they were attached to the Spinatrypa in life. I can prep the Greenops but they won't be white when I'm done. They will have to be stabilized and when that happens they will darken up.

Mikey