Marjum Formation Trilobites

[Zachster]

Hello Everyone! First off, I am excited to be part of this amazing forum! I am excited to be here and it is really cool to be part of a community where questions are open and people are so willing to help other out! I have never operated a forum before so this is a first for me and this is my first post in my first forum.... so needless to say I am a little excited! lol Please know that my writing style may change over time as I learn about writing in a forum and about posting my own work here on this forum. I am hopping to keep a relaxed, but professional forum running. I am hoping to also post at least once a week during the summer. Once I go back to school in the fall I hope to keep posting, but if it was like last semester, that may not be possible. I will post as much as I can though, that you have my guarantee!

Last semester I took a paleobiology class here at the U of U. I throughly enjoyed it, I especially loved the invertebrate sections on cephalopod, arthropods, and the phylum echinodermata. I unfortunately only have a small selection of crinoid stems, so there is not much to post about there. I knew about ammonites (a cephalopod) and trilobites (an arthropod). I did not know much though. I new ammonites had a round shell that was coiled in on it's self and that was about it. I knew that trilobites got more complicated as they diversified and that they had 3 lobes, but that was it. Then I took the class and learned a whole lot about them! It was so much fun! What I learned about them is not the scope of this forum, if you want to know more about them I would recommend the text book we used. It is very good at explaining everything to inexperianced people (such as my self) and has lots of references for additional reading. The book is called "Bringing Fossils To Life An Introduction to Paleobiology" 3rd edition. It is quite a remarkable book.

The fossils were collected in the House Range in Millard Country outside of Dugway Utah. I collected a few pounds of shale and it was quite full of trilobite fossils. The environment they lived in was a shallow marine environment. The matrix around the fossils is a beige color. I use a SE 979fSG Flexible Shaft Grinder, Chuck, Pedal, and Switch. You can pick one up from amazon for $70 or so. I also use steel saw blades for the Dremel tool and some steel brushes for it as well. I have other tools for the dremel but have not used them yet. I use these because I do not have access to any other tools for cutting stone.

Please be safe while using this. I strongly recommend gloves, safety glasses, and a face mask to filter out dust, i would also recommend hearing protection. It can be loud at times. I also wear a white lab coat to keep dust off my and my cloths.

For fossil identification I have been using a small guide to trilobites that my professor gave me.

I looked on line for definitive trilobite's located in the Marjum Formation and was not successful. I do not claim to be a trilobite expert, and as such I may have made mistakes with their identification. If you feel I was wrong please feel free to let me know what you think they are! There are several samples that looked so much like they were Elrathia or Marjumia (these will be posted later) that I may have been wrong in my identification. All these fossils are from the Marjum formation and I found them so I know they are all real.

So here are some pictures I took of them. If they are too small let me know and I will try to upload larger pictures. I have also labeled each so if people are talking about a specific one they can reference them exactly. B refers to bathyuriscis and the number corresponds to the order I took the pictures in. I will add other spices later and they will have a different letter abbreviation. I do have other bathyuriscus fossils pictures to post, I will add them later. Right now I just want to get started!

B1 B2

B3 B4

B5 B6

B7 B8

B9 B10

B11 B12

B13 B14

B15 B16

B17

[ynot]

Nice group of trilobites.

Tony

[Zachster]

Thanks! I have lots of other species that I will be posting too.

[ynot]

Thanks! I have lots of other species that I will be posting too.

Looking forward to seeing them!!

Tony

[doushantuo]

Elrathia:

http://www.csus.edu/indiv/b/bueningn/paleo%20rq%202010/gainesdroser.pdf

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/asset?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0032934.PDF

[Zachster]

thanks for the paper. I will add that to my list of papers to read. The Wheeler formation is the one it is talking about (at least it is mentioned in the abstract), the marjum formation is adamant to the wheeler formation. I can't remember if it is younger or older stratigraphically then the wheeler formation. I am leaning to older then the wheeler formation.

I have collected quite a few fossils from the wheeler formation too. I will add them to the forum once i start working on them.

[doushantuo]

http://www.usu.edu/geo/liddell/WDLper/Brett%20et%20al%202009.pdf

[Zachster]

OOO thanks! adding those to the reading list too!

[doushantuo]

http://www.bioone.org/doi/pdf/10.17161/PC.1808.8543

[JohnBrewer]

Welcome to the forum. Nice collection of bugs you have. Looking forward to seeing more

[RJB]

Those remind me of fembriatus? Im no trilo expert either. I use to dig around the wheeler many years ago.

RB

[Zachster]

Hello again!

Here is a picture of my work space I use for cutting out fossils. I have a card table set up with my safety equipment and dermal tool mounted to the side. Please make sure that if you work on fossils the way i do that you have the proper safety equipment. The gloves are kevlar and not just cotton, they will help prevent me from cutting myself.

Now that I had a bit more time for my hobby researching that I am doing. I was able to catalog the last few Bathyuriscus trilobite fossils in my collection. here are the pictures!

B18

B19

B20

B21

B22

B23

B24

B25

and B26

This collection is a little more special then the last pictures I posted. These trilobite fossils are actually much larger then the last ones. They are also more intact. B25 and B25 are really COOL!! They are actually the same fossil. I don't know the official word for it but when I opened up the fossil which I could only see a little corner of it the rock split apart and the fossil was perfectly preserved on both sides of the rock. It was really cool! I think that the one that is a little bit more orange to it may be a permineralized fossil and the other side is like a cast with some carbonization on it. So if anyone can describe what that process is to me to be able to make 2 complete fossils out of one trilobite I would be interested in learning about it.

So Today I want to talk more about how I have been storing them. After I cut out all the pieces into manageable sizes I needed to find some where to store them and I needed to make sure that what ever I did that they can not slide past each other and scratch each other. So what I did was find some art supply organizers with different compartments. They fit well (except these ones lol) and I put pieces of paper towel in-between each layer of fossils. One little 25 by 15cm box with several dividers seems to hold them very well. I have used this method for transporting them as well as storing and they stay in place pretty well. I pack any excess space with the paper towel to prevent them from moving around. The larger fossils in this collection I wrap them up with paper towel and leave them in a small open tackle box.

[ynot]

Mold and cast.

positive and negative.

I know there are a couple of other terms used to describe it, but I can not think of them right now.

Most likely the trilobite was replaced with an iron mineral that left a small amount on the negative part and still kept the shape of the bug in the positive.

Tony

[Zachster]

Okay that makes sense. I have seen cast and mold before but not like this. Is it common for the mold to have a layer of harder mineral deposits to keep the shape and have a different color then the rest of the rock?

[ynot]

Most of the ones that I found at the Antelope springs where I had both halves do not show any mineralization on the negative or mold part. I have seen other locations where it is common for both sides to show some mineralization.

Tony

[DevonianDigger]

Great looking collection you've got going! Looking forward to seeing more!

[Zachster]

Most of the ones that I found at the Antelope springs where I had both halves do not show any mineralization on the negative or mold part. I have seen other locations where it is common for both sides to show some mineralization.

Tony

Okay so I just depends on the area and the mode of peservstion. Sounds like it isn't an uncommon feature then either. Also. How do you get the links to your stuff to apear at the bottom of each of your posts? Is it because you have a certain number of posts or do you put it there your self?

[ynot]

How do you get the links to your stuff to appear at the bottom of each of your posts?

Go to Your "profile" page. On the upper right is "edit My profile"- click there.

This will bring up another page, on the left is "signature", click there and get another page. Then place Your signature in the window of that page. (the same as posting to a thread.)

To get the links in I copy the thread's address and paste it there.

When done click "save changes"

If You want to change the "signature" just return to this page.

Good luck,

Tony

[Zachster]

Okay. Thanks I will be sure to change that.

[Mike Pocock]

Very nice trilobites

Thanks for the post

Regards

Mike

[Zachster]

here are a couple more trilobites