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Bowmanville ON Spring 2017


Northern Sharks

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Better late than never, here's a report from June 4th. As some of you knew, and now all of you, I'm the trip coordinator for the collecting trips into the St Marys quarry in Bowmanville ON to collect in the ordovician Lindsay/Cobourg formations. There is also some Verulam fm. at the bottom and Whitby fm. at the top of the quarry. We had 20 people show up for the annual spring fossil dig and in keeping with tradition, it was raining. I, and about half the crowd, started on a large pile on level 3. Almost immediately, the first trilobite was found, an enrolled Isotelus. After a quick preliminary look all over the pile, as I made my way back to get my saw to cut out the first roller, I found his older sibling –same orientation but a bit larger. Not a bad start; one hour in and 2 bugs for me. After hearing that not much was being found on level 2 or 4, several of us continued on the same pile and a surprising amount of stuff came out of it that we all missed the first time around. I cut out 3 prone Isotelus for 2 first timers, another ¾ complete one for another rookie and what may be a really nice one for myself, almost entirely buried so fingers crossed. Several others were found and I left a couple that were just a bit too far gone. One collector spent most of his time in the Whitby Shale at the top of the quarry and was rewarded with a nice Pseudogygites trilobite, the only one of this species found. My find of the day however was a beautiful crinoid (Iocrinus subcrassus) sitting on a rock clear as day with about an hour left in our allotted time. How everyone, myself included, missed it up until now was beyond me, but I won’t complain. This makes it 3 straight trips for me bringing home a crinoid, 3 different species as a bonus,  after going years without ever seeing a decent one at this site.

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There's no limit to what you can accomplish when you're supposed to be doing something else

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That full Pseudogygites is fantastic, and I would consider running over my own grandmother to collect one! Great finds on a rainy day, and that crinoid is lovely, too. Had I known the annual Bowmanville trip was happening, I probably would have pestered and begged you that I could come along!

...How to Philosophize with a Hammer

 

 

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Wow, Kevin!  :o

Awesome finds!   :fistbump:

Glad you got a picture of the Pseudogygites !

Those Isotelus rollers are nothing to sneeze at either! :) 

Hope the crinoid preps out as good as it looks to be!:popcorn:

Thanks for the great report and pictures. 

Regards,

    Tim    -  VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER

   MOTM.png.61350469b02f439fd4d5d77c2c69da85.png      PaleoPartner.png.30c01982e09b0cc0b7d9d6a7a21f56c6.png.a600039856933851eeea617ca3f2d15f.png     Postmaster1.jpg.900efa599049929531fa81981f028e24.jpg    VFOTM.png.f1b09c78bf88298b009b0da14ef44cf0.png  VFOTM  --- APRIL - 2015  

__________________________________________________
"In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks."

John Muir ~ ~ ~ ~   ><))))( *>  About Me      

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I will post a few I found (iso & ceraurus) and collected on Sunday, also a couple that I prepped  (isos and ceraurus) for some of the American visitors we had to the quarry

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Nice finds!! Amazes me how my Ordovician is SO different from other collector's Ordovician. Would have loved to join in the fun. Hope to see other's posts of the day's finds.

 

Mike

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20 minutes ago, minnbuckeye said:

Nice finds!! Amazes me how my Ordovician is SO different from other collector's Ordovician. Would have loved to join in the fun. Hope to see other's posts of the day's finds.

 

Mike

I know right? I would love to have shale like that, but I guess that is what makes our finds that much more special.

...I'm back.

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Here is what I brought home from the SMC trip organized by Northern Sharks this year. I gave the prone isotelus marked (RM) to one of the US guests who was not finding much. It was quite smashed up but after prep and some restoration (about 40%) is now presentable. Later he found the nice ceraurus in the middle which I also prepped for him. I suspect that it was one of the best finds of the day. It is 99 percent complete with no repairs or restoration. The head is tucked around at the front and the whole trilobite is highly inflated.  The other prone isotelus at the top left was found by another American guest who asked me to clean it up and prep it for him. It was in quite a few pieces by the time he got it out. Took a while to put the jigsaw back together. The small prone isotelus at the top right is a juvenile and is about 90% complete and was actually found on the same slab as the ceraurus in the middle. Good thing I had my rock saw as every one of these was on a several hundred pound hunk of matrix (boulder) somewhere in the middle of a big blast pile.

 

 All I kept from the day was the rolled isotelus at the top left and the ceraurus at the bottom. I think I gave away 4 or 5 almost complete isotelus to some of the collectors that were not having a great day. All in all even though the weather was miserable until about 1:00 it was a decent day. 

 

 

 

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Wonderful finds!!!

 

All of these were found in a working quarry, right?  Only 10 more years and then Viola and I will be able to visit, too (when she's 16 years old) - make sure to leave us some interesting stuff to find! :P

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You all are rather spoiled in that province (despite the time and work involved).

:wub:

 

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14 minutes ago, Wrangellian said:

You all are rather spoiled in that province (despite the time and work involved).

:wub:

 

Yep, all you've got is beautiful ammonites, crabs, crinoids, Cranbrook and Tanglefoot Creek trilobites, Princeton fish, flowers, leaves and insects, the Burgess shale (to look at anyway)... :wub: :wub:  Not to mention the much more spectacular scenery.

 

Don

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Monica, Unfortunately it is very much a working quarry and would not be suitable for Viola for a while. I believe they have the must be 16 and be wearing full safety equipment rule. For the most part you must climb on the blast piles and split rock to really find anything of substance.. 

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Nice finds and report! Thanks for sharing!

Dipleurawhisperer5.jpg

I like Trilo-butts and I cannot lie.

 

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4 hours ago, FossilDAWG said:

Yep, all you've got is beautiful ammonites, crabs, crinoids, Cranbrook and Tanglefoot Creek trilobites, Princeton fish, flowers, leaves and insects, the Burgess shale (to look at anyway)... :wub: :wub:  Not to mention the much more spectacular scenery.

 

Don

Princeton, Tanglefoot and Burgess may as well be in another province!

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9 hours ago, Wrangellian said:

Princeton, Tanglefoot and Burgess may as well be in another province!

Heh... You could always consider moving here and enjoying our cold winters and crippling lake-effect snows! :P:D The snow shovelling alone is great practice for the short collecting months when we have to shovel overburden, and chipping ice is a little like splitting blank shale. :D 

...How to Philosophize with a Hammer

 

 

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10 hours ago, Wrangellian said:

Princeton, Tanglefoot and Burgess may as well be in another province!

Ottawa to Arkona: 684 km; 6 h 16 min driving time.  I made that trip several times on a motorcycle.

Ontario is a big province too.  If you think people in Ontario don't have to travel to get to decent collecting sites you are mistaken.

 

Don

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I don't think it gets more hardcore than that, Don! :hammer01: That would absolutely make for one of those motivational posters, but for fossil collectors, reading '"Dedication." And your run time was pretty good! 

 

The distances to traverse can be quite significant pending where one wants to go in Ontario. Add to that issues of gridlock on some sections of the 401, too. It is more often the case that any travel for collecting trips is measured in hours, tanks of gas, and chewing up a lot of kms of blacktop. My being under an hour away from Arkona would qualify as "close" by Ontario standards! But it is a fine province to collect, as I am sure BC is as well. The grass is always greener, as they say... ;) 

...How to Philosophize with a Hammer

 

 

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2 hours ago, Kane said:

I don't think it gets more hardcore than that, Don! :hammer01: That would absolutely make for one of those motivational posters, but for fossil collectors, reading '"Dedication." And your run time was pretty good! 

 

The distances to traverse can be quite significant pending where one wants to go in Ontario. Add to that issues of gridlock on some sections of the 401, too. It is more often the case that any travel for collecting trips is measured in hours, tanks of gas, and chewing up a lot of kms of blacktop. My being under an hour away from Arkona would qualify as "close" by Ontario standards! But it is a fine province to collect, as I am sure BC is as well. The grass is always greener, as they say... ;) 

To be fair, that "run time" is from Google Maps; I don't recall how long it actually took.  Also bear in mind that Toronto traffic was not so awful (relatively speaking) in the early 1980s compared to today.  Also I would camp out overnight so it was not round trip in one day.  These days I am fortunate to get a day every few months to collect, so I am often limited to there-and-back in one day.

 

I am fortunate to have lived in both Ontario and BC (and also Manitoba) and so have had the opportunity to collect in many places.  BC has Ontario beat for scenery for sure.

 

Don

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4 hours ago, FossilDAWG said:

To be fair, that "run time" is from Google Maps; I don't recall how long it actually took.  Also bear in mind that Toronto traffic was not so awful (relatively speaking) in the early 1980s compared to today.  Also I would camp out overnight so it was not round trip in one day.  These days I am fortunate to get a day every few months to collect, so I am often limited to there-and-back in one day.

 

I am fortunate to have lived in both Ontario and BC (and also Manitoba) and so have had the opportunity to collect in many places.  BC has Ontario beat for scenery for sure.

 

Don

From what others tell me, the 80s were halcyon days for collecting in Ontario. 

 

I've also lived in both BC and Ontario. I can't dispute the gorgeous landscapes in BC, but there is that small-town Ontario charm that is unique. 

 

 

 

 

...How to Philosophize with a Hammer

 

 

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I never said you guys were spoiled for weather...

But I thought Malcolm said there were something like 4 'world-class' fossil sites within a few hours drive of each other (that might have included one or two across the border in NY? I don't remember)

And it's all Paleozoic limestone! Trilobites! Crinoids! Eurypterids! Other oddball stuff! Here on the Island it's all Cretaceous marine shale which most people seem to not care for, unless it's non-mollusk (eg. crabs).

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40 minutes ago, Wrangellian said:

I never said you guys were spoiled for weather...

But I thought Malcolm said there were something like 4 'world-class' fossil sites within a few hours drive of each other (that might have included one or two across the border in NY? I don't remember)

And it's all Paleozoic limestone! Trilobites! Crinoids! Eurypterids! Other oddball stuff! Here on the Island it's all Cretaceous marine shale which most people seem to not care for, unless it's non-mollusk (eg. crabs).

Well, "world class" is in the eye of the beholder! Consider the the premium dig sites in the US and they can promise a lot more volume for effort. The paleozoic is largely nothing of much interest to, say, the ROM, unless there are vertebrate fossils.  Do a search of invert paleontologists in Canadian universities, and you'll find a shrinking number. Consider the amount of Fossil ID requests for verts and shark teeth. If I find something of scientific interest, I have to go down south. 

 

Being the most populous province means we continue to see massive development through urban sprawl. Exposures are already limited by three major glaciation events that dumped tens of metres of soil and sand everywhere. I live on one of the most extensive exposed formations of the Devonian, but 99% is buried deep. Moreover, the quarries that used to play ball with collectors are even fewer these days. 

 

Those four "world class" sites is about as much as we have left, and they aren't as productive as they used to be. Take the Ridgemount quarry in Ft. Erie for example: you could easily work that for a whole day and come up empty. Just like you are no longer allowed to hunt the Burgess, we have no access to the Craiglieth/Collingwood for Ordovician shales either due to provincial park status or extensive private development on the shoreline. Ottawa was filled with sites that have since been covered over in development. Small outcrops are all we have left.

 

And just so you know, it ain't all limestone here! We have some lovely shales - when we can gain access to them! It is not easy finding spots here in Ontario anymore. We're holding on with what we got, but what we got shrinks every year. Big province, but opportunities diminishing. :( 

 

Eric, I will never say you don't have challenges where you collect. We all do. But for the record, we are not spoiled here. We do as best as we can with what we have left. :) 

...How to Philosophize with a Hammer

 

 

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