The *almost* hidden C&D Canal

[I_gotta_rock]

The recenty-bare plain of the Reedy Point North spoils pile, seemingly lost, until one walks in a little further!

Yesterday, I got some rather disturbing news. I had just arranged a trip to The C&D Canal's Reedy Point spoils pile, just South of Delaware City. I mentioned it in a post here and someone reported back that the site, which I had just visited two months ago, which the Army Corps of Engineers promised would be available in October, had been paved over with a parking lot and a brand-new, paved bike path replaced of the old, gravel road. It would have been the fastest government construction project in Delaware history. It also would have been my luck for this report to be accurate the day after Delaware Nature Society posted the trip online!

This morning, I jumped out of bed to see what the scene had become. I was never so happy to see that familiar gravel road! It was like Indiana Jones realizing that the Germans were digging in the wrong place. They had not paved my beloved sandbox and the one who told me about the pavement, it turns out, had missed a turn when driving through. *Whew!*

Two months ago, the site was cleared of most vegetation, as it is from time to time. The sand gets used in road construction. Sometimes they take everything of interest, as they did across the canal at another spoils pile, and sometimes they reveal some rather nice pieces. The place was littered with fossils on a vast plain of bare sand in late May!

This morning, the place looked, on first glance, absolutely overgrown, like the picture above. Even the truck tracks that were clear for decades suddenly had 2-foot-high weeds almost hiding them. I pressed on to see what was visible over the hill. The weeds gave way in patches to loose, open sand by the acre.

Oh, yes! Plenty of Pycnodontes! Bountiful Belemnites! Oodles of Ostreas! A multitude of myriad miniatures!

When I left home, I didn't expect to return with anything. I expected pavement. At best I expected to find the same old stuff and leave it where it was. Instead, I may actually have found one species I didn't have in the collection yet, plus a pocket load of nice, mini pieces that I just couldn't leave there and one of the biggest Pycnodonte mutabilis I've ever seen.

You never know until you go!

view from about 50 meters to the left of the top photo

Edited August 3, 2016 by I_gotta_rock

[Trevor]

Good thing you got out and found some nice specimens. I still want to go out one day to the C&D Canal, hope they don't pave it over too soon.

[I_gotta_rock]

Not going to happen. They have a very nice bike trail that runs almost to it, then curves to the north into the center of a cute little town that would like the cyclists' business! More likely they will strip all the fossil-bearing sand for road construction at some point, but not this year.

[FossilDudeCO]

Great report thanks!

Looks like there is some great stuff there!

[JohnBrewer]

That's a nice varied collection, looks a great place to hunt.

[drobare]

Thanks!... I see my mistake now.. I went to the wrong bridge! No wonder everything looked different..

Like I said.. it sucks getting old. Thank you so much for the report!! I will try to get out there sometime soon.