Belated trip report for St. Paul Quarry

[Shamalama]

This report is of my first trip into the St. Paul, IN quarry and my first time to collect (extensively) from the Waldron Shale. Previously I have collected the Waldron Shale at the Tunnel Mill site a little farther south but that is not very easy to collect from and the exposure is not as extensive as at the St. Paul Quarry. It was a 9 1/2 hour drive from my house near Philadelphia, PA to Greensburg, IN where I was staying so I had driven out the day before the quarry was to open. I stopped at the St. Leon (South Gate Hill) roadcut, as I got into Indiana, and did have some luck finding some small roller Flexicalymene trilobites. "This is a good sign" I told myself!

The morning dawned when my alarm went off around 6am. The Quarry would start letting people in around 7:30 so I wanted to be there early to avoid any crowds or lines. Also, collectors were only allowed in the quarry until noon and I was going to make the most of my time! I arrived at the scale house around 6:45 and there was one car already waiting near the entrance. Before long a few more showed up and then a couple of Quarry employees opened the gate. After signing in, I was in the first group of cars to drive into the quarry. After a quick orientation and explanation of where we could and could not collect, there were four possible areas, we set off towards an area that had experienced some extensive weathering. As I had never collected this quarry before I was not sure what to expect so I wanted to look through rock that was weathered and maybe had some loose fossils.

We got to the area after a short drive, it was at the top of the quarry and overlooked the pit itself. We were allowed to collect along the berm edge but we could not climb on or over the berm itself. It was for our safety and seemed reasonable as there was quite a lot of rock to look at along the base of the berm and the ground. The rock was already broken up and had been removed as a byproduct of the quarry operations. They wanted the limestone, not the softer shale.

[Shamalama]

A view of the whole Quarry..

[doushantuo]

WOW.

post #2:What we see in that pic,is that all Waldron?

[Shamalama]

I set out looking over the weathered material along the berm and there was another gentleman nearby. Within five minutes he asks me if he'd found something and shows me a prone Calymene trilobite partially exposed from the matrix. All you could see was the ridge of the axial lobe and some bumps of the eyes and glabella. I was a touch jealous at that point. So I went back to looking for my own prize and was coming across lots of loose brachiopods. They are easy to spot because the shells are dark grey to black and stand out against the light grey of the rock. Many of them have Pyrite crystals attached as well and I even found a small cluster of Marcasite blades.

My first fossil that I found, An Eospirifer

The weather was good, nice and cool with low humidity and cloud cover for most of the time. The cloud helped keep the temperatures down and evened out the light that, in the early morning, was at a low angle. I wasn't finding much of anything by splitting the shale so I instead started to look around along the ground which was all broken and weathered shale. I found many larger brachiopods and some big gastropods this way and started to find a number of the caylxes of the crinoid Eucalyptocrinus, which is something of a marker fossil for the Waldron Shale. The calyxes were not complete, they were missing the arms, but it was nice to find something besides brachiopods.

Eucalyptocrinus calyx in situ

I spent the four hours that I was there alternating between splitting large chunks of shale and searching the weathered material for loose fossils. At one point I lifted up a huge chunk of shale that had some harder, limy bands and broke that down into smaller pieces. It was prolifically fossiliferous in the limy layers but the shale layers were somewhat barren. I took a number of pieces of the broken down slab and put them in a bucket as well as one large, two foot by one foot piece that I put directly into my car. It had some large bumps poking out of it and coated with shale. I wanted to see if it would weather out at home, so now it sits in my garden waiting for the freeze thaw of winter to work it's magic.

Towards the end of my time I was wandering around the area looking for any loose fossils. There were quite a few that I found that other people had just walked over. I also noted that the edge of the collecting area was right over the quarry pit and there was some evidence of tension cracks at the top of the slope. Tension cracks are an early indication of slope failure. If it rained for a few days, portions of the top of the slope would be down at the bottom in no time. At least when I was there it was dry and stable. Still, one does not want to linger in such areas in case something bad were to happen.

[Shamalama]

Sadly, the time came where I had to leave. I had spent my day in basically one area exploring what was present. Some of the other avilable hunting areas might have been more prolific but as this was my frist trip I wanted to not run all over the place. The next time I go (and I will find a way to go back) I will try one of the other areas and see if I have better luck. I had been worried that the number of collectors that were expected to arrive would make for crowded collecting but I never experienced that feeling while I was there. I think there was so much area to explore that everyone was able to spread out.

Here are some of the other fossils that I found. Many of them could use a few minutes with an air abrasive to knock the rest of the shale matrix off.

Possible Conularid

Crinoid "roots"

Gastropods

Marcasite crystal

Geodized Brachiopod

Sampling of Brachiopods

Some corals and bryozoans

[Shamalama]

I didn't find too many trilobites but I did get some trilobits and a possible buried specimen.

This may just be a cephalon that is buired but I hope the rest is under there too!

[Shamalama]

WOW.

post #2:What we see in that pic,is that all Waldron?

Pretty much Doushantuo. they scrape it off the layers they want and dump it elsewhere. I think the Waldron is the top layers that you see in the quarry walls. Here is another collecting area with shale all spread out.

Edited August 7, 2016 by Shamalama

[Fossildude19]

Excellent report, Dave!

Glad you did well. there.

Thanks for posting this.

Regards,

[Raggedy Man]

I love how the quarry changes so drastically year to year. This is the first year I haven't hunted this quarry since I've joined the forum.(Yes it saddens me)

Wonderful Dalmanites sp. pygidium. The Waldron contains 3 different species.

D.vigilans, D.verrucosus, and D.bicornis.

The gastropods look like Platyostoma niagarense.

A good resource to use for the Waldron is:

"Descriptions of the Species of Fossils in the Niagara Group at Waldron, Indiana"

By Prof. James Hall, State Geologist of New York.

I actually have a hard copy from 1918ish. You can smell the yummy age. I plan on scanning it in the very near future and posting some plates for identification purposes. Sounds like you had a great time.

Best regards,

Paul

Edit: Added image

Edited August 7, 2016 by Raggedy Man

[Malcolmt]

Envious here... Here I thought the drive was too hard and you went all the way from Phili.....

[CAtoPA]

Lovely report!! Wish I could go. I'd be driving about the same amount of time, starting from Bethlehem, PA. Still trying to find some nice local spots to hunt!

You found some really nice pieces!! I absolutely love that geodized brachiopod!!! The best of both worlds to me!!

[JohnJ]

Great report and field shots, Dave.

[doushantuo]

With what you've found,i'd be over the moon.

All Paleozoic in the Netherlands is in the deep(very deep) subsurface

Although there seems to be(I'm not kidding) a tiny cm-thick layer of Carboniferous outcropping somewhere,a piece of about a meter long.

Great report,great fossils,brachiopod sample has me breaking out in the colour green

Edited August 7, 2016 by doushantuo

[JohnBrewer]

Great haul. That looks like an incredibly rich area.

[Ludwigia]

Thanks for the report, Dave. I also wouldn't have known where to start in that huge area without getting a tip from the experts. At least you've got a feel for it now. Better luck next time, although you didn't do badly at all.

[nala]

great report and stunning pictures!

[piranha]

On 8/7/2016 at 7:15 AM, Raggedy Man said:

...The Waldron contains 3 different species.

D.vigilans, D.verrucosus, and D.bicornis...

 

 

A lot of Hall's taxonomy from the late 1800's has been revised. There are only 2 dalmanitids from the Waldron Shale: Dalmanites halli & Glyptambon verrucosus. There is only one fragmentary specimen of D. bicornis. That holotype is lost and no other examples of D. bicornis have been described since Hall 1877.

 

The genus Glyptambon was established by Holloway 1981.

 

Holloway, D.J. (1981)

Silurian Dalmanitacean trilobites from North America and the origins of the Dalmanitinae and Synphoriinae.

Palaeontology, 24(4):695-731

 

Here are the comments from Delo 1940 on D. bicornis and the synonymy of D. vigilans.

 

Dalmanites bicornis: This species is incompletely known. The holotype is the subcephalic margin of a cephalon and bears an anterior process consisting of a short stout base and two stout, sharply pointed processes diverging at right angles. Larger fragments of the species have not been found. The location of the type is unknown.

 

Dalmanites vigilans: The name Dalmanites halli was proposed by Weller as a substitute for the “D. vigilans” described by Hall from the Waldron area. Hall had originally described D. vigilans from the Niagaran limestone and later referred the Waldron specimens to it.

 

Delo, D.M. (1940)

Phacopid trilobites of North America.

Geological Society of America Special Paper, 29:1-134

[Raggedy Man]

Thanks for the correction Piranha. I should have known there were revisions. Those plates and names were from the original report in 1879.

[Jeffrey P]

Congratulations Dave. Looks like you did real well there. I especially like the brachiopods and corals and those gastropods look like they'll prep out just nice. That crinoid root base looks totally awesome! Thanks for sharing your finds and experience.

[smt126]

Great trip report. Sounds like it was am worthwhile trip.

[Toddster]

Nice write up. You did better than I, but it was definitely a fun trip. I'm still finding things in the rocks I brought home.

[Pagurus]

Thanks for the detailed trip report, Dave. I feel like I was there, though I wouldn't have been anywhere near that edge with the tension cracks. You made some excellent finds, though we're never satisfied, are we. I love that crinoid base and that big gastropod is terrific. All nice finds. Good luck with that slab in your garden too.

[Shamalama]

I love how the quarry changes so drastically year to year. This is the first year I haven't hunted this quarry since I've joined the forum.(Yes it saddens me)

Wonderful Dalmanites sp. pygidium. The Waldron contains 3 different species.

D.vigilans, D.verrucosus, and D.bicornis.

The gastropods look like Platyostoma niagarense.

A good resource to use for the Waldron is:

"Descriptions of the Species of Fossils in the Niagara Group at Waldron, Indiana"

By Prof. James Hall, State Geologist of New York.

I actually have a hard copy from 1918ish. You can smell the yummy age. I plan on scanning it in the very near future and posting some plates for identification purposes. Sounds like you had a great time.

Best regards,

Paul

Edit: Added image

20160807_091714_resized.jpg

Paul,

I have to thank you for the tip off about the trip in the first place. I'm glad I was able to get in and play around a bit in a formation that I rarely get to see.

Thanks for the ID tips as well. I found this link to part of the book you referenced: https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/14456 but it does not include any of the plates. Argh! I'll keep looking.

[Shamalama]

Excellent report, Dave!

Glad you did well. there.

Thanks for posting this.

Regards,

Thanks Tim.

Envious here... Here I thought the drive was too hard and you went all the way from Phili.....

Thanks Malcolm. It was a hard drive (about 9.5 hours) but well worth it. We need to try and get you there soon.

Lovely report!! Wish I could go. I'd be driving about the same amount of time, starting from Bethlehem, PA. Still trying to find some nice local spots to hunt!

You found some really nice pieces!! I absolutely love that geodized brachiopod!!! The best of both worlds to me!!

Thanks! PA spots are hard to find as so much is overgrown or obliterated by development.

Great report and field shots, Dave.

Thanks John!

With what you've found,i'd be over the moon.

All Paleozoic in the Netherlands is in the deep(very deep) subsurface

Although there seems to be(I'm not kidding) a tiny cm-thick layer of Carboniferous outcropping somewhere,a piece of about a meter long.

Great report,great fossils,brachiopod sample has me breaking out in the colour green

Very happy with my haul. It may not be the most rare or pristine but it is all definitely cool to me.

Great haul. That looks like an incredibly rich area.

Thanks John! Very rich layer full of fossils.

Thanks for the report, Dave. I also wouldn't have known where to start in that huge area without getting a tip from the experts. At least you've got a feel for it now. Better luck next time, although you didn't do badly at all.

Roger, Sometimes it's easy when you have layers to look at but this was all broken down. So next time I will split more and hopefully come away with more Trilos.

great report and stunning pictures!

Thanks Gery!

Congratulations Dave. Looks like you did real well there. I especially like the brachiopods and corals and those gastropods look like they'll prep out just nice. That crinoid root base looks totally awesome! Thanks for sharing your finds and experience.

Thanks Jeff! Yes, there will be lots of easy cleaning if I ever get tools to do that.

Great trip report. Sounds like it was am worthwhile trip.

Thanks!

[Shamalama]

Nice write up. You did better than I, but it was definitely a fun trip. I'm still finding things in the rocks I brought home.

Thanks Todd! Sometimes it's just beginners luck and sometimes a sharp eye.

Thanks for the detailed trip report, Dave. I feel like I was there, though I wouldn't have been anywhere near that edge with the tension cracks. You made some excellent finds, though we're never satisfied, are we. I love that crinoid base and that big gastropod is terrific. All nice finds. Good luck with that slab in your garden too.

Thanks Mike. These reports take some time to put together so I'm glad this one came out so well (and so quick)! I'll have to post pics of the slabs.