Trip To The Montour Preserve

[PA Fossil Finder]

Yesterday I revisited the awesome Montour Preserve Fossil Pit! The pit is an old borrow pit the Preserve uses to dig gravel for trails and paths. The pit is open to collectors, and collecting is encouraged - a paved parking lot and a sign that says "Montour Fossil Pit" welcome any collectors to the area. When I first arrrived, I walked up and down the hill a little to look for surface finds. I've found some nice fossils using this method. When I was done with that, I searched for the spot I had been digging in last time I visited. I had been digging in a rather fossiliferous section of the hill. When I had found that, I used my chisel and hammer to pry out layers of the shale. It worked fairly well, but I wasn't getting that much shale out with that method. I had noticed some fault lines/fractures in the area I was digging, so I tried using them to my advantage. I hammered my chisel under a large section of shale, then I would use my hammer to lift it out. Using this method, I managed to clear a good section of the hillside. I got lots of trilobite heads, horn corals, brachiopods (huge ones!), and lots of other random bits of stuff. I think I even got a good section of a Greenops trilobite. I'll be air erasing most of these fossils before I post them, but here are a few teasers

Trilobite (Eldredgeops rana) head in situ:

Horn coral in situ:

I had arrived at the pit around 6:00, so by the time I was leaving it was already getting dark:

I'll post updates when I've prepped some of these fossils!

[Raggedy Man]

Save the trilobites! I look forward to seeing your prepped specimens.

Best regards,

Paul

[PA Fossil Finder]

Finished prepping one of the big trilobite heads, and I was surprised with a nice little crinoid stem on the same rock! Lots of these trilobites have this calcite "crust" that can be difficult to remove.

Edited August 6, 2015 by PA Fossil Finder

[Ridgehiker]

This is always my favourite types of finds. Something like a crinoid stem, brach or whatever saying 'Here I am. Look over here'. More than one species in a piece of matrix reminds us it's not just a specimen for collecting but an ecosystem. Are all the trilobite heads that big in that quarry?

An aside. I don't know what your collecting site is like but I find some type of a crow bar with a long handle for leverage really helps to get through some of the tough layers...then I use a hammer and chisel.

[PA Fossil Finder]

This is always my favourite types of finds. Something like a crinoid stem, brach or whatever saying 'Here I am. Look over here'. More than one species in a piece of matrix reminds us it's not just a specimen for collecting but an ecosystem. Are all the trilobite heads that big in that quarry?

An aside. I don't know what your collecting site is like but I find some type of a crow bar with a long handle for leverage really helps to get through some of the tough layers...then I use a hammer and chisel.

No, not all trilobite heads are that big in the pit. Here's a smaller one I just finished:

We actually brought a large breaker bar to break up the shale last time, but it seems the greater force you use to extract fossils the more broken they become

A small hammer and chisel is probably the best course of action at this site.

[PA Fossil Finder]

After finding this brachiopod, I decided to collect some more concretions to split. In my search, I found two that had already opened up. Both had inarticulate brachiopods inside (they are probably Lingula sp. also).

This one is larger:

This one was in a huge concretion, but it's tiny!

After those finds, I tried splitting a concretion with my hammer. It didn't really work, but I did find another brachiopod:

It wasn't very well preserved or easy to photograph.

For the rest of the concretions, I'll probably try the freeze-thaw method people usually use for concretions and nodules.

[PAJim]

Nice finds! When we were there, we only really found shells and coral in one spot. Everything else was kind of sparse at best. I found a trilo eye, but nothing as nice as these.

[JimB88]

good stuff! The horn coral almost looks like a cephalopod the way its coiled. And I love the Lingula brachs!

[Jeffrey P]

Those lingual brachs are my favorites.

[Auspex]

good stuff! The horn coral almost looks like a cephalopod the way its coiled. And I love the Lingula brachs!

Yeah, that one kept tipping over an trying to grow upright...pretty neat!

[ZiggieCie]

Nice finds.