Shamalama's fall trip out west

[Shamalama]

For the second year in a row, I took a long, two-week vacation to Wyoming, Utah and Colorado in late August and early September. It was a nice vacation but perhaps a bit too long. The highlight of my trip was visits to the Warfield fish quarry in Kemmerer, WY, the Blue Forest in Eden Valley, WY, Wamsutter, WY for "Turritella Agate", Great Basin National Park in Nevada and Douglass Pass in Colorado. I've been working on a really involved narrative of the whole trip but it is taking some time and I'm running out of steam so I wanted to get some pictures and summaries up on the Forum.

 

My first stop was to a site south of Wamsutter, WY where you can find "Turritella Agate" which is silicified rock that is jam packed with snail shell fossils. The area has changed a bit since I last visited eight years ago with many more Oil and Gas pumping sites.

 

 

 

After collecting my fill I got back on the road. My next stop was to an area that had some agates but I didn't find anything that was terribly interesting.

Finally, I stopped at a section of the “Oyster Ridge” south of Kemmerer. Here some Cretaceous aged sediments are tilted up. One of the layers is composed of a Pelecypod hash which does not often produce good quality, whole specimens. I found one nice specimen and then spent some time exploring one of the other layers which was a sandstone with lots of fluvial features like ripple marks, fluting and other features indicating it once was an estuary or beach like environment.

 

 

I snagged a nice sized piece for myself and a few others for my Aunt's garden in Longmont.

 

Cont'd...

 

 

[Shamalama]

The next day I hit the Warfield fish quarry in Kemmerer and found a number of good fossils. Total haul was 12-15 whole fish, most of which were Knightia or Diplomystus but I did get two decent Mioplosus. One is a franken fish (broken into four pieces) and the other is still mostly buried in matrix. No other big finds this year. The rock was somewhat "wet" and was not splitting too well. Most of what I found was from the "scab" layers. Still I was quite happy with what I found and especially so as everything made it home in one piece through the mail.

 

Most of my haul

 

This is my "frankenfish" Mioplosus

 

 

My other Mioplosus is still under the matrix of the large slab in the top of this pic.

 

 

This piece is broken but was still nice enough for me to keep. It's an Amphiplaga sp. I think.

 

An "Explodo-fish" and one of my favorite finds. The fish body disintegrated some before it was fully buried.

 

This is a plate with the 3/32" ash layer on it that has multiple fish preserved, all Knigtia sp.  I am working on exposing as much as I can and started with the two near the bottom first.

 

 

Cont'd...

[Shamalama]

View of the valley from the fish quarry...

[Shamalama]

View of the valley from the other side, see if you can pick out the fish quarry...

[Shamalama]

Day three saw me heading over to the area of the "Blue Forest" to look for some petrified wood. To my dismay, I'd forgotten my shovel so I could not dig like I had planned. Instead I spent a few hours walking around the area looking through spoil piles from old and new digs. I found quite a bit of what I considered keeper pieces and some nice, wind smoothed agates. Later in the day I went to another area near Farson to look for some palm wood but mostly struck out. I found some fragments of palm and one decent stem section but that was about it.

 

A view of the collecting area...

[Shamalama]

Some pits that were freshly dug in the last few months...

 

and my finds from the Blue forest...

 

 

 

Continued....

[Shamalama]

The other collecting area near Farson 

 

Some wind smoothed Stromatolites and the lone good piece of palm wood I found.

 

Continued...

[Shamalama]

It’s Sunday now and this was a travel day from Kemmerer to Delta, UT stopping at a couple of sites along the way. One location was a former beach along the Great Salt Lake where oolite dunes were located. Oolites are just small, sand grain sized concretions of calcite that form in reducing environments like the Great Salt Lake or in tropical lagoons where the water evaporates faster than it is replenished.

 

A view of the former "beach"

 

Oolite dune close ups

 

Some of salt flats

 

Cont'd....

[Shamalama]

Continuing south I then lingered in the Lake Mountains to look for Limonite crystals west of Provo, UT. I found a few small pieces and one 1/2" cube but the area had been dug fairly extensively in the last year by some collectors so there was not as much to be found on the surface.

 

View from the Lake Mountains to the north.

 

And to the east

 

Collecting area

 

some finds

 

The last spot I loitered at was to look for some petrified wood near Nephi, UT but that was a total bust. It is in an area that is an active ranch and the site was next to a copse of stubby trees that the cattle used for shade and the rancher used as a feed and water station. The bull flop was everywhere, as were the flies. This site would be better for the fall or early spring when there were less flies.

I rolled into Delta late and found that much of the town shuts down early on Sunday, including Grocery stores and restaurants. I was lucky there was a McDonalds open or I would not have had much to eat that night.

 

Cont'd...

[Ludwigia]

Well, after a day like that, you just can't frown at a McRib I'm enjoying this. Keep 'em coming.

[Shamalama]

On Monday morning I drove out from Delta to the Great Basin National Park near Baker, NV. The park surrounds and includes 13,159’ tall Wheeler peak and several other 12,000' peaks. Within the boundaries there are a number of ecological bio zones along the flanks of the mountains. From sagebrush along the base through scrubland and pine forests in the middle up to Bristlecone Pines clinging to life among the barren rock, 3,000' below the top of Wheeler Peak. I did some hiking to the Bristlecone Pine grove and also toured the Lehman Cave which was really cool.

 

Sunrise

 

Approaching the park from the East

 

Wheeler Peak

 

Lehman Cave

 

They used to allow people to break off the cave features for souvenirs and some are starting to grow back.

 

Cross section of a "soda straw" stalactite

 

More damage being repaired

 

They also used to put their initials on the cave ceiling using candles but this can't be removed now because it happened so long ago, it;'s considered historical. The cave is growing over it anyway.

 

the formation in the center of the picture is called "the Parachute" and is probably the best known feature in the cave.

 

Back on the surface and out hiking now.

 

Cont'd....

[Shamalama]

A really old Bristlecone Pine

 

Closer view of the contorted trunk

 

And the line between alive (left) and dead.

 

Cont'd...

 

[Shamalama]

 

More pines

 

 

Wheeler Peak is composed of the Cambrian aged Prospect Mountain Quartzite which is mostly grey but has some blue and white highlights. Some of the rocks I saw along the trail showed evidence of cross bedding. Farther down the mountain, the Lehman cave is within the younger Pole Canyon Limestone (also Cambrian).

 

Some of the cool rocks

 

This picture does not do the size of this rock justice. It likely is about the size of a car! Nice mineral veining throughout.

 

Cont'd....

 

[JimB88]

Awesome trip! You found some neat stuff! How old is the Blue Forrest pet wood?

[Shamalama]

After I had my fill of cool air and pine scented breezes I headed over to the nearby Confusion Range to try my luck at finding some Pennsylvanian aged corals. I didn’t find the corals but I did find some bryozoan fossils that were partially replaced with a red Chert or Agate. The red Chert and grey limestone are neat to see side by side as is the contrast of preservation. I should say replacement rather than preservation as the Agate likely came in later, after the initial limestone fossilization. I saw examples embedded in the rock as well as eroded out and lying on the hill side.

 

The outcrop

 

Closer....

 

In situ within the outcrop

 

A piece that had weathered out

 

I had some more plans to visit other sites nearby and possibly spend the night in my rental SUV but Monday had other ideas. First I got my rental vehicle, a Jeep Grand Cherokee, stuck on a rock and spent half an hour digging, with the vehicle jacked up, so I could move the rock out of the way.

 

Then I got a flat tire and found that the rental only had a donut replacement tire instead of a full sized one. So I headed back to Delta, at 50mph as that is what the tire was rated for. By the time I was approaching Delta it was 9pm and the sky was dark. I decided to pull off the road and see if I could spot the Milky Way. Guys, it was incredible! The sky was so full of stars I had trouble picking out the common constellations. The Milky Way was a faint belt stretching across the sky from horizon to horizon. And I saw several shooting stars too. For a guy who has lived on the East Coast most of his life, and always close to cities, the view I had was amazing. Normally I can see the constellations and a few other stars but here it was as though someone had spilled slat on a black table cloth. I tried to take some pictures but my camera only had settings to keep the lens open no longer than 15 seconds. To get one of those nice pictures where you can see the Milky Way I would need to keep the lens open for several minutes in order to gather enough light to make it visible. As it was I took one of the better pictures that came out and bumped up the brightness to yield this photo, which was only of a small patch of sky and still doesn't show all the stars that were visible.

 

 

So the day wound up on a positive note at least. 

 

Cont'd....

[Shamalama]

The next day I spent most of the morning getting the flat tire fixed so I didn't have as much time to go to sites. I chose to drop by the Bug House, a local rock shop in Delta, and get a pass to their Dugway Geode digs. It turns out they are not allowed to excavate anymore as of this spring. Their dig site was on BLM land and the BLM halted any further trenching. So they don't charge to go explore the pits they dug or the surrounding spoil piles. Unfortunately, the word had been out for some time and when I got there I could see that there had been many other collectors here before me. The spoil piles had been dug into, the pits had evidence of weathering (since they were not excavating anymore) and I had a really hard time finding any geodes. Previous visits had yielded plenty of whole, unopened geodes right on the surface of the piles but now, even digging was not producing much. So, I collected what I could, mostly small geodes and some broken halves that looked nice and headed back to town. I hit the Bug House again so I could buy some unopened geodes, that are scattered around their property, to supplement my meager finds. I was going to spend the money to buy access to the site so, if that was now free, I could instead spend the money on geodes. They have a huge pile of previously cut geodes that you can pick through for just $1 a pound. One area of the pile has some unopened specimens and so I filled up a 5-gallon bucket with those and a few of the cut specimens which would look nice as landscape rocks.

 

It was now Wednesday and time to start the trek back to Denver. I stopped at a site near Castle Dale, UT to see if I could find some whole Septarian nodules and ammonites. I had some luck with the former but not the latter. The Septarian nodules are evident on the surface of the ground but they are heavily weathered and fractured into pieces. Significant digging would be required to get whole specimens and that was not something I wanted to do. It was hot and I still did not have the proper tools. Perhaps if I lived more locally and made a day trip out if it, I could find some whole specimens. Over in some other nearby layers I found some small Ammonites in nodules. Mostly I found small Scaphites but I saw evidence of larger specimens and different species, as broken pieces, as I wandered around the low hills in the area. I justified my small finds by telling myself it would be less weight to ship home and continued on my way.

 

The views

 

And some finds

 

Before I left Castle Dale I dropped by a rock shop that I spotted as I was driving. It was part of a building that also housed a car wash and a grave memorial service. I suppose if the rock business was slow you had two other business to help support you. The shop was called Braun Lapidary and the owner, Patrick Braun, was very friendly and we talked a bit about collecting and what I was looking for

 

 

 

Cont'd...

 

[Grimlock]

Awesome finds and a great trip report! The photos are wonderful as well.

[Shamalama]

He was getting ready to head to Japan for a Mineral show that he’s sold at for a few years. He ships all his inventory over and then sets up at the show. He must do pretty well to be able to afford the travel and shipping costs. It’s too bad I had not stopped by earlier as he offered to give me directions to some local sites for Cedar Mountain Petrified wood, which is sought after for the red color. Well, that will have to wait for another trip but he gave me a couple of pieces as samples. I also bought some local material from him like a piece of the Red Cat Flat agate which is another sought after item. It is much harder to find now that it used to be and he had a bunch from an old collection. It's basically agate replaced petrified wood but only the exterior texture is preserved as the rest of the wood is long since dissolved away. So the space is often filled with a crimson red agate and white to clear quartz and makes for good lapidary material when cut. I also picked up some cretaceous aged leaf fossils from an old collection. Hard to find on the market and even harder to find in the field. I continued on my way and got to my hotel in Grand Junction in time for a dinner at a local brewery called Kannah Creek. Good food and beer make for a fine end of the day treat.

 

Red Cat Flat Agate/Petrified wood

 

Dino Bone

 

 

Nice palm wood branch and slab

 

Some Cretaceous aged leaves from local formations

 

And a nice section of Blue Forest wood that shows evidence of termite or carpenter ant tunnels.

 

Cont'd...

 

 

[Shamalama]

 

My last day of collecting was to Douglass Pass which was north of Grand Junction. I was planned to spend several hours splitting the oil shale, looking for insects and leaves from the Eocene period. The rock here is contemporaneous to the fish quarries in Wyoming but is a brown colored oil shale instead of a cream colored freshwater limestone. I had some good luck and found a few large, intact leaves and some nice insects.

 

A feather

 

Robber Fly

 

Dragonfly wing

 

Leaves

 

Some Bot Fly larvae

 

Insects

 

I wish I could have spent more time at this location but after five hours the sun was starting to go down and I could see pop up rain storms in the area. There is so much rock here that it will take generations to go through it all so I will come back again sometime.

 

 

That pretty much wraps up my trip. It was fun but had some trials to overcome. I didn't collect as much as I had during previous visits so my shipping bill was a bit lower. It was only a couple of days after I got home that my boxes arrived and there were no major breaks or losses, even with the fossil fish! That is a first for me and a pleasant ending to the vacation.

 

I wonder if this is a large Legume seed?

[Shamalama]

20 minutes ago, Ludwigia said:

Well, after a day like that, you just can't frown at a McRib I'm enjoying this. Keep 'em coming.

 

Thanks Roger!

[Shamalama]

13 minutes ago, JimB88 said:

Awesome trip! You found some neat stuff! How old is the Blue Forrest pet wood?

 

Thanks Jim! It's Eocene age, contemporaneous with the Green River fish and Insects.

 

A view of Lake Fontenelle that is near by

[Shamalama]

9 minutes ago, Grimlock said:

Awesome finds and a great trip report! The photos are wonderful as well.

 

Thanks Grimlock, I didn't find any of your relatives this trip.

 

Old ranch buildings.

[Raggedy Man]

Fantastic trip report! I felt like I was there with you in that cave. Thanks for sharing!

[PFOOLEY]

One heck of a report!!! Thank you for sharing with us.

[jpc]

Nice report, shamalama.  Great insects.  Yes, the area area the Turritella Agate site has had an overpopulation of oil wells sprout up recently.  

You didn't go find trilobites outside Delta?