Wrangellian Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 Went up the mountain on Sunday, mainly to look for trading material for a couple other members... The workers have been moving more rock around since I went up last week. I've been wishing for years that this stuff could be turned over so that fresh fossils could be exposed, but the now-crushed and dirty rock is harder to find stuff in, so I focused on the old stuff, which has always been weathering and slowly releasing new fossils anyway. Splitting chunks... Anyone recognize this little ammonite? Maybe not enough there to get an ID.. There's @aerogrower's 2cm cube for scale: 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrangellian Posted June 6, 2017 Author Share Posted June 6, 2017 I did find some trading material, but of course, as it happens I find other things that I don't want to let go of, that take up time and effort! Uintacrinus arms uncovered... Start uncovering more, and... there's the head! (Hmmm, sounds like giving birth) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrangellian Posted June 6, 2017 Author Share Posted June 6, 2017 This is now the best Uintacrinus I've found in 8 or 9 years of collecting up there. Which makes it the best crinoid of any sort that I've ever found (there aren't many other types or locations/formations I've collected)... Anyway, you can see that I've been applying the Acryloid B-72 in there to try to keep this crappy shale together as I extract the fossil... but the %#$& stuff wouldn't dry fast enough! It's acetone-based, for $#% sake! Time was wasting and the sun would be setting soon, so I tried to hurry the extraction and ended up bungling it to some extent. Now this is what it looks like! Going to take forever to put it back together. I'm not even sure I'll ever have the ambition to tackle it. Maybe in the winter, or when I'm old and grey and can't collect anymore. I don't know if that kind of glue was the right thing for this job. If I had the luxury of time, maybe come back the next day (as I have done before), it might have been able to set and maybe would have come out better, I don't know. But the trouble was this rock could have all been destroyed the following day (Monday) - for all I know, that pile is all rubble right now. So I had to get a move on. Anybody got any bright ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monica Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 Wow - great finds!!! That's a beautiful crinoid, by the way - congratulations! I hope you were able to remove it safely from the rock! Edit: I just saw your next posting - so sorry about the broken rock Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrangellian Posted June 6, 2017 Author Share Posted June 6, 2017 Ha ha! Thanks Monica. Its now resting in pieces in that coffin beer flat here on my floor. Maybe it will be resurrected someday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kane Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 Cool trip, even if that shale is so uncooperatively flaky. That's an excellent crinoid. Fortunately, you took a picture so that it can be a kind of shale-based jigsaw puzzle with the photo functioning as the picture on the box. (I think you might be on to something, having invented something new ). ...How to Philosophize with a Hammer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miocene_Mason Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 Why can't nature ever pu the cracks where we want them? Nice find anyway and my condolences to your specimen. “...whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.” ~ Charles Darwin Happy hunting, Mason Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aerogrower Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 Nice trip report. Was hoping you would use that cube out in the field! Do they continually pile more rock on top of those piles, or just make more piles? To think of the fossils that must be buried in those piles is mind boggling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest11596 Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 Starbond EM-02 would have served you well... http://www.starbond.com/standard-clear-ca.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fossil-Hound Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 @Wrangellian I know the pain but hopefully you'll stick with it because that crinoid looked really good before *uh-hum* it imploded. Do or do not. There is no try. - Yoda Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jewelonly Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 Such a wonderful find @Wrangellian! I wish you well on your reconstructive efforts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PFOOLEY Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 7 hours ago, Wrangellian said: Anyone recognize this little ammonite? My first thought was Desmo- or Clio-scaphites...can you expose more? "I am glad I shall never be young without wild country to be young in. Of what avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?" ~Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) New Mexico Museum of Natural History Bulletins Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FossilDAWG Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 No scaphitids have ever been reported from the Nanaimo Group, though it's not impossible that they could show up as they occur in correlated formations in California and Japan. The little guy looks like a juvenile Canadoceras to me. Unfortunate that that shale is so brittle, but considering the quality of the crinoid in the photos if it were me I'd be re-assembling that thing pronto. That way, if there turns out to be anything missing you might be able to go back and try to find it. For the Nanaimo Group, that is a museum quality fossil. Don 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrangellian Posted June 6, 2017 Author Share Posted June 6, 2017 Thanks, everyone. I wondered if that ammo was a juvenile Canadoceras or Eupachydiscus. Canadoceras are strangely rare up there, but Eupachy's are more common (but not common per se).. I have other things occupying me lately and I doubt I'd be able to get it assembled far enough to know whether there are any missing bits in time to go up and retrieve them; by the time I do they will likely be disintegrated in the weather or possibly bulldozed. I'm pretty sure I have all the pieces of the crinoid, anyway - if there are any missing pieces of the underlying matrix, I don't know, but that's not as serious a problem, and I guess gaps can be filled in with some kind of filler. Anyway I'm not looking forward to this tedious job.. It will probably go to the museum eventually anyway, so maybe I should pass it over to their volunteers to reassemble! I'll give them the pictures to go by! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrangellian Posted June 6, 2017 Author Share Posted June 6, 2017 10 hours ago, middevonian said: Starbond EM-02 would have served you well... http://www.starbond.com/standard-clear-ca.html If that stuff is cyanoacrylate, I have PaleoBond but didn't think to bring it with me. I thought the B-72 would be safer to use (easier to undo) -Just didn't realize it would be that slow to dry, and it wasn't soaking into cracks very fast either, I guess the acetone has been slowly leaking and thickening my solution. Anyway, if CA is easily-enough reversed with acetone, maybe it is the better stuff to use when time is of the essence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrangellian Posted June 6, 2017 Author Share Posted June 6, 2017 10 hours ago, aerogrower said: Nice trip report. Was hoping you would use that cube out in the field! Do they continually pile more rock on top of those piles, or just make more piles? To think of the fossils that must be buried in those piles is mind boggling. The piles were dumped there about 10 years ago when the place was going to become a golf course, then the project halted because of the lack of a water supply (duyyyy!) So the piles have been left there, weathering away, me collecting for the last 8-9 years, but the place is being developed into houses, and now they are starting to move the rock around (and smashing much of it in the process, apparently). I hate to think of how many fossils are being destroyed (have been and will be). It is a one-man salvage operation for sure. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miocene_Mason Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 If I wasn't about 4,600 kilometers away, I would offer my help.(: “...whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.” ~ Charles Darwin Happy hunting, Mason Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aerogrower Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 Me too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ludwigia Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 What a great find. I agree with Don. Get that thing put back together as soon as possible. I'm sure you can do that. You're starting to sound like Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger http://www.steinkern.de/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darktooth Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 Nice find Eric! We have all been there! Hopefully you got it all! I like Trilo-butts and I cannot lie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrangellian Posted June 7, 2017 Author Share Posted June 7, 2017 Thanks again for the kind remarks... I will get it put together when I have the time and ambition, right now I have neither. At least I got the thing off the hill, probably in the nick of time! It's not going anywhere now. In the near term I should probably devote my time and energy in getting back up there to collect as much as possible before the whole place is leveled and off-limits... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RJB Posted June 7, 2017 Share Posted June 7, 2017 Hey Wrangellian. Sad to see all those pieces in that box. I agree, quite the puzzle. Thin set super glue and some accellerator? RB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpc Posted June 7, 2017 Share Posted June 7, 2017 Yes, Starbond is cyanoacrylate. I find that cyano is a pain in the patootie to remove (read: snarge near impossible), esp in a soft shale like that stuff. You've done the easy first half of the jpob... saving it from become driveway gravel. I see a great puzzle to work on while watching late night tv with a bag of popcorn. I also would love to come save this pile of fossils from certain cremation. How far are you from central Wyoming? Will you maybe need help in the fall. I've always wanted to collect on Vancouver Island. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrangellian Posted June 7, 2017 Author Share Posted June 7, 2017 I'm sure some of the other piles will still remain in the Fall, but I don't know that it's worth coming all the way from Wyoming (for instance, this is only the 3rd or 4th near-complete crinoid in 8 or 9 years of collecting, and this1 is the best one)... but I guess you could hit some of the other Island spots as well! Let me know if you ever do plan to come up. It will probably be done in front of the TV (but buttery popcorn could be a problem). I will have to clear off the card table I have set up there now, and lay it all out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimravis Posted June 8, 2017 Share Posted June 8, 2017 Nice find- Congrats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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