Trip To Mid-Atlantic Fossil Sites (Nj, Md, Pa - U.s.)

[Pagurus]

Family vacations include just my wife and I now that the "kids" are grown and married, and these days the two of us are happy to plan our trips around fossil sites. A couple of weeks ago we drove down to New Jersey, Maryland and Pennsylvania, stopping at Big Brook, coastal New Jersey, Calvert Cliffs, St. Clair, Beltzville Park region and Carbondale. It was a great trip. We didn't make any startling discoveries, and the scientific community won't have to rethink any evolutionary theories after our expedition, but we enjoyed ourselves immensely.

On our drive south we stopped for only an hour at Big Brook. We'd been there several times before and we always look forward to it. We didn't have time to stray too far from the parking area but we did a little sifting with quarter-inch screens and made a few small finds.

The mammal tooth is modern, not fossilized. I think it's deer. We found a few small shark teeth, the usual belemnite pieces and concretions of all shapes and sizes. We tend to pick up anything that looks like something, but we weren't there long enough collect very much. Our malibu barely noticed the weight.

................

We drove to the shore and enjoyed a few days just walking the beaches and marshes of Brigantine, New Jersey, not searching for fossils, just enjoying the sea and the migrating birds. I did come across what I think is a bit of fossil coral. I could be wrong. It seemed out of place there but just about anything can wash up on an ocean beach.

.....

After a few days of R&R in NJ we drove down to Solomons, Maryland, where we stayed a couple of nights and toured the friendly and informative Calvert Marine Museum. It's small but bigger on the inside, with some excellent displays of fossils. Very kid - friendly and also very professional.

We had planned on visiting Flag Ponds the next day but ended up at Matoaka instead. It was a cold and damp and I was glad we didn't book space in one of the old wooden cabins. They reminded me of places I stayed with the Scouts as a kid. It was a blast back then but I'm afraid my aching bones are too old for them now. We met the 95-year-old owner who was helpful and friendly. The young woman in the office was equally friendly, let us use the "facilities" in one of the cabins, and showed us the way to the beach.

The strand lines along the narrow beach were full of broken shells, most of them eroded from the cliffs. We collected some miocene scallop shells, along with smaller molluscs and some good-looking barnacles (if you can say that about barnacles), but we didn't see any shark teeth on the surface.

We screened along the water line for awhile, and found a few small teeth and quite a few nice pieces of coral. I filled my backpack with chunks of clay that had fallen out of the cliffs, to check for any small shells or micros, someday. The car bounced along the dirt road without any real problems.

...

On our way to Pennsylvania the next day, we first stopped at Brownies Beach, a little further north along the Calvert Cliffs.

We arrived at a very low tide and the beach was beautiful.

We mostly scanned along the shoreline as we walked the beach, and occasionally stopped to sift a little. My wife found one nice shark tooth, maybe Carcharias sp?, but I didn't have much luck just scanning the surface.

We were happy just walking along the beach and admiring the cliffs and the scenery, and occasionally stopped to pick up a few fossil shells. I brought back some more clay to look through later.

(To be continued ... )

[Pagurus]

It was dark by the time we reached our destination in PA, and the next morning we drove to St. Clair. We had been there a couple of years ago and it was just as wonderful this time. I was a little concerned by the automatic weapon fire nearby at the range, but all was well. It was a busy Saturday at the collecting area, with half-a-dozen cars and trucks and close to a dozen collectors, some with much more experience than I.

I came away with some decent plates, including this attractive one with a plant I believe is Sphenophyllum, along with a fern and a small bit of a plant that looks like it could be Neuropteris.

It's hard to leave St. Clair without carrying more than one should carry, and a couple of mules would have been handy. When we finally reached the car it wasn't pleased with us at all.

We stayed longer than planned at St. Clair and didn't really have time to poke around Deer Lake, though we made one quick stop, and we had hoped to visit Hawk Mountain also, but had to put that off for another trip. We set our GPS to work to help us reach our next site near Beltzville State Park, but she (we call her "Gracie) led us astray. I was hesitant when she announced, "Turn left here," when my gut said go right, not left, but I'd developed a trust in her and I obeyed her command. We soon made a right turn and then another right and I figured we were finally heading in the direction I wanted to go in the first place. Two miles later she demanded, "Go offroad now," through a stand of maples, a chain link fence and a little-used railroad track. Say good night Gracie.

We were happy with our road-cut finds when we finally arrived there. It's a Devonian, Mahantango formation. We found some trilobite parts, brachiopods and quite a few unknowns which I'll probably post in the ID section. Here are a few:

This may be the bivalve Modiomorpha

A spiriferid brachiopod. I'm not sure which one

Trilobite thoracic segments. Phacops?

Trilo pygidium

Is this crinoid??

crinoid?

It was getting dark by the time we left so I filled a 5 gallon pail and a couple of cloth bags with promising material to split later. The car groaned.

Before heading for home in beautiful central Massachusetts we spent a few hours in Carbondale, PA, searching through a spoil pile of Pennsylvanian shale. We tried to convince the malibu to enter a little dirt road to the site but it refused. It was already carrying rocks from three states and it just said no. We walked to the site, a short walk there and a long walk back.

(Carbondale photos in my next post below)

Now I have a house full of fascinating fossils and I still can't get enough. This morning I met Tim the fossildude at another site in Connecticut to dig just a few more. Is there a pill to make it all stop??

Edited November 11, 2013 by Pagurus

[jcbshark]

Nice finds.Sounds like a great trip.Thanks for sharing.

[Pagurus]

A few of our Carbondale finds:

[Vordigern]

Ive been waiting for this post great story and finds, my favorite is the first plate from St Claire, beautiful!

[Pagurus]

Ive been waiting for this post great story and finds, my favorite is the first plate from St Claire, beautiful!

Thanks for all your help!!! This forum is incredible and members like you are top notch. I never would have known about many of these sites without the help of many forum members. Carbondale was a terrific place to collect. Thanks. I do like that first St Clair plate. I guess that's why I posted it first.

Mike

[MarcoSr]

Really nice post and nice pictures. You definitely found a very nice variety of fossil specimens. Are you sure your Brownies Beach picture is recent and not from thirty years ago? I can't remember the last time when there weren't footprints and/or people all over on the beach after sunrise.

Marco Sr.

[Jeffrey P]

Sounds like a great road trip. You hit all all the big eras; Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic. A very diverse, wonderful collection, and all from one trip!!! The Spenophyllum and the spiral gastropod are my favorites. One of the "crinoids" is actually a weathered trilobite pygidium. Enjoy your collection. Thanks for sharing.

[Uncle Siphuncle]

my kind of marathon trip! a spouse willing to embark on these adventures is the true gem of it all. you owe her a bouquet of fossilized horsetails.

[Fossildude19]

Excellent report and pics, Mike.

Glad you had such a productive, relaxing trip.

Regards,

[Auspex]

Very timely; I need a vacation, and your report will tide me over well

[jpc]

my kind of marathon trip! a spouse willing to embark on these adventures is the true gem of it all. you owe her a bouquet of fossilized horsetails.

I agree with everything dan says here.

Sounds like a fun trip.

[squali]

Pagarus, great trip report. It is nice to occassionally live vicariously through others.

[Pagurus]

Really nice post and nice pictures. You definitely found a very nice variety of fossil specimens. Are you sure your Brownies Beach picture is recent and not from thirty years ago? I can't remember the last time when there weren't footprints and/or people all over on the beach after sunrise.

Marco Sr.

Thanks. We went on a weekday in October and there were very few people on the beach. There was road construction in the area, so maybe that kept some people away. We drove past the entrance the first time. That picture of Brownies is one of my favorite shots from the trip. I've never been to Brownies before, but some of my favorite beaches from 30 years ago are a heck of lot more crowded these days than they were back then. I usually wait until the off-season, though the water is a lot colder this time of year.

[Pagurus]

my kind of marathon trip! a spouse willing to embark on these adventures is the true gem of it all. you owe her a bouquet of fossilized horsetails.

Thanks, Dan. She's a true gem indeed. We've been sharing outdoor adventures for quite a long time now. I'm a lucky guy.

[Pagurus]

Thanks Tim, Chas, JPC, and Squali. It was a great trip. I look forward to hearing about your adventures too.

Mike

[lissa318]

Missed this post and what a great trip!!! Wonderful finds!

[jpevahouse]

NJ has everything from dinosaur foot prints and Devonian fossils in the northern part of the state to numerous Cretaecous marine sites up and down a long strip from Sayreville to south of Camden. There's even occasional Pleistocene mammal fossils found along the coast. As for fossil hunting there's more to expore than time to explore it.