Wyoming Fossil Hunting Adventure--September 2017

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The Trip That Nearly Didn't Start

 

(Lengthy image-intensive trip report follows)

 

Tammy and I had planned a fossil hunting trip to Wyoming for the third week of September to redeem our day of digging (splitting rock) at the Green River Formation quarry that @sseth had earlier so generously offered up as a prize on an auction to benefit TFF. We had our airfares, a rental car reserved, and a series of hotels booked across the state ready for a monumental fossil hunting trip. The one small problem was the not so small storm named Hurricane Irma that tore through the northern Caribbean and had its sights set on the Florida and being wider than the peninsula, no Floridian was going to miss the effects of this storm.

 

   

 

Earlier in the week the forecast had the centerline of the cone of probability for the track of the storm hitting Miami and traveling up the eastern coast where Boca Raton sat squarely in the cross-hairs. I guess that if you are going to be in the path of some major destruction it is better to be the target early in the week rather that toward the end when the storm is at our doorstep. Thankfully (for us, but not so for those in the Lower Keys and Southwest Florida), the storm's turn to the north was delayed and though we were now on the stronger NE quadrant of the storm, the eye was significantly far away to the west that we escaped the strongest of winds. The storm unleashed squadrons of tornadoes and micro-bursts which had us ducking into our safe room for cover. During the storm unidirectional winds first blew from the east and then from the south as the storm passed us to the west but the tornadic winds were something else as the trees started whipping around in all directions quite violently. Luckily for us, the house survived with no structural damage. The newer more sturdy pool cage that replaced the original one that Wilma had crumpled and stuffed into the pool back in 2005 (shockingly) did not even lose a single screen panel. The damage on our property was limited to toppled trees and broken limbs and branches.

 

We lost power even before the eye wall had made first landfall in the Florida Keys. As soon as it was safe to go outside, we started the portable generator and ran extension cords throughout the house to keep refrigerator, freezer and a box fan and a few lights powered. We've cooked on our outdoor grill and Coleman camp stove in previous power outages caused by the rash of hurricanes in 2004/05 and so we were well prepared and never at risk of starvation (we actually ate rather well). While Wilma had run over the house in late October, 2005 when the temperatures had cooled somewhat from the hot muggy Florida summer, we were not so lucky this time. Outdoor temps in the low 90's were soon matched by the 88 degrees inside which made sleeping difficult (even with a fan). We spent the days cutting up the downed foliage and stacking it into many piles along the street in back of the house as well as a towering mount in the cul-de-sac in front (which is still growing in size to this day and is due to be cleared by FEMA sometime in the next 2-3 weeks).

 

 

Taking frequent breaks inside to lay down on the floor in front of the fan to avoid all-out heat exhaustion, both Tammy and I worked to clear the property as much as we could and monitor the progress of power restoration in our county. Over 70% of homes and businesses were left in the dark after Irma but Florida Power & Light had learned a few things after performing poorly in the 2004/05 hurricane seasons. They had staged a bunch of replacement parts and crews fresh from working in Houston were in the state working to get the grid back online. We couldn't leave on our trip unless we got power back and we watched the percentage of customers without power slowly but steadily decrease until one evening our power flickered and within a few minutes was restored for good. I had been waiting till the last possible minute to cancel my plans and try to get refunds for the reservations we'd made for this trip. I was tired of a week of hot sweaty yard work clearing debris and I was ready for some cooler Wyoming temps.

 

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September 16 (Saturday)

 

We made our Southwest flight to Denver, CO without issue and no storm-related complications. We picked up our rental car at the airport and headed for the Denver Coliseum. We planned on starting this week-long trip by checking out the Denver Coliseum Mineral, Fossil, Gem & Jewelry Show. As a general rule, I don't buy (or trade) fossils as I would rather go out and hunt for them myself. I enjoy the experience as much, and likely even more so, than the fossils themselves. We'd never been to a 'rock show' before and were up for a novel experience. We only had a few hours to peruse the show and I'm glad I didn't have more because my eyes would have melted and my brain gone soft trying to take in all of the wondrous rocks in various forms--mineral, fossil, and gem.

 

We managed to locate Blake (@FossilDudeCO) and his lovely wife Brooke at their booth, Moments In Stone, and stopped in to say hello. I'd missed seeing Blake when he visited Florida last fossil hunting season as I was out of the country but @Sacha made sure a visiting TFF member was shown some Florida hospitality. I carried around my camera during our entire time at the show but was too awestruck by all of the sights to even remember to take it out and snap some photos. Most of the show was just tables and tables of gorgeous goodies that overwhelmed the senses and would be familiar to those to frequent these shows but I wish I'd have thought to get a photo or two of Blake and Brooke.

 

We took our leave of the show (after Tammy found a few necklaces and other pretty things for gifts). We headed north to meet-up with a recent co-worker of Tammy's who lived just north of Denver. We had a pleasant dinner with them but could not chat on into the night as we still had some miles to put behind us as we were headed to Cheyenne, WY to spend the night in the historic and quaint Plains Hotel in downtown Cheyenne. As night fell on our first evening we were already enjoying the brisk cooler (and drier) weather now that we were far from South Florida.

[ynot]

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September 17 (Sunday)

 

We had a good night's sleep and a reasonable breakfast before hitting the road again to continue our way north. Our destination was Casper, WY and we easily made it there by lunchtime. After dropping bags in the hotel and a quick bite to eat, we decided to go out on our first "treasure hunt" of the trip. We had planned on meeting JP (@jpc) the following morning and had a free day so I found the closest interesting sounding location from my Rockhounding Wyoming book to check out. The location was southeast of town about 1h40m away and is called "29. Holaday Road Agates" though the location is on the more properly spelled Holiday Road (every writer needs a good editor). The location promised agates and jaspers in a high prairie environment where we would be surface hunting.

 

We worked through a couple more podcasts while driving down to the location. Directions (and road conditions) were actually pretty good and we arrived without any of the usual confusion that seems to accompany other sites in these rockhouding books. A little ways before we'd arrived at our location we passed a car pulled off to the side of the road. The car's occupants were busy walking around in the sagebrush and weedy scrub. At first I thought they might have stopped to walk a dog or something till I noticed they were all walking with their heads bowed down--a sure sign that they were checking out the ground looking for something. Unless someone had recently dropped their keys I suspected this was a spot I wanted to check out on our return. I noted the location with respect to other landmarks and planned on visiting it after trying out our planned destination. In due time we arrived at where the GPS said we should be and we pulled off the road (though we never saw another vehicle for hours and could just as safely parked right in the middle of the dirt road). I try to be careful when pulling off as I'd hate to set any brush ablaze with the toasty parts of the car's exhaust system. There are enough wildfires in the west this year and I certainly didn't want to be the cause of another.

 

   

 

One thing I'd soon discover about this Wyoming trip is that I may have left the heat, humidity, and flooding rains behind in Florida but not all of the wind. I think there may have been a minute (possibly two) during our trip where the wind was not blowing--but I can't remember when. We bundled up with some extra layers and went out to face the gale force winds. I'd already spotted some nicely colored glassy rocks at the edge of the road and so I suspected we were in the appropriate place for a fun surface hunt. This was public (BLM) land but was being grazed by numerous cattle from some rancher who had secured the rights to let his cows wander the area. We also spotted a few Pronghorn Antelopes on the ride out. We'd not spotted this species during our time in Idaho the previous month and the new species was a welcome (and soon to be common) sight. At first, Tammy thought she'd seen a deer off in the distance but it was facing away and when she described its great white circular hinder I knew it wasn't a Mule Deer.

 

The site did not disappoint and soon we were filling some large zip-top plastic bags to capacity with colorful rocks that were partially smoothed and "tumbled" by natural forces indicating that they'd be good fodder for my rock tumbler back home. All we had to do is to avoid the numerous 'cow pies', antelope pellets, and the occasional cactus while picking up a nice diversity of colorful tumbler material.

 

       

 

       

 

 

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On the way back to our hotel we relocated the spot where we'd seen the car. Tammy and I call these locations 'Bear Jams' after the traffic congestion spots we've encountered in parks in the west like Yellowstone or Glacier. All it takes is one person to see a bear, or wolf, or moose and stop off the road to leave the car to get a better photo and soon the attractive nuisance of the first car has caused several more to be caught in its gravitational field. Before long it tends to take a park ranger to break up the jam of cars. Whether we spot a group of divers huddled around something on a coral reef, a flock of birdwatchers with their eyes skyward looking off into the trees, or an actual cluster of cars off the side of the road, we have learned to pay attention to the pack and be curious. We now use the term 'Bear Jam' very broadly to be inquisitive whenever we see someone else inspecting something.

 

By the time we'd returned to this 'Bear Jam' there were no signs of bears nor jams as the car had since departed. We pulled off near where they had been and got out to inspect the area to see what they might have been searching for at the site. It didn't take long to notice that the area had lots of colorful rocks--probably with a lot higher density than the spot we'd just visited.

 

       

 

We grabbed some fresh zip-top bags and started collecting additional tumbler material at this site. Just as I had spotted something even more interesting I heard Tammy shout out, "Hey, is this?" Before I even let her complete her question, I answered, "Yup, petrified wood!" We found a few chunks that definitely showed a woody texture to them and we wandered around to see if we could find more.

 

   

 

I continued to collect some agates and other colorful rocks and the occasional small chunk of pet wood when Tammy called again.  I looked up and she just stood there. I realized she wanted me to come over so I headed in her direction and soon saw that she was standing next to an area where it looked like a petrified log had exploded. There were lots of shards of pet wood littering an area about 20 foot in diameter and no petrified pieces at all beyond this small area. We selected a few nice chunks for our collection and then headed back to our hotel for dinner and a good night's sleep. We had a successful day already under our belt and were excited to meet-up with JP the following morning.

 

       

 

 

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September 18 (Monday)

 

We had got in contact with JP the previous evening. He had spent the weekend down in Laramie seeing friends but had returned and was ready to meet us Monday morning. We drove over to JP's house and got a nice tour of his collection--not only the pretty bits in the display cabinets but also the bulk store of specimens and plaster jackets outside and in his garage turned prep-lab. I told JP that it is good for Tammy to see others with collections much larger than mine so that my (relatively) small collection looks sane in comparison. After gathering some collecting gear we followed JP to the Tate Museum where he works so that he could drop off a camera. When we got there we had a quick inspection of the displays inside the Tate. It deserved much more time than Tammy and I could afford to give it this morning but we did get to oggle at some of the highlights including Dee the Mammoth--4 meter tall Columbian Mammoth.

 

Before we left for the field, JP asked if we'd like to see Lee Rex, a T. rex specimen JP had discovered in 2005 on the ranch of Lee Brown. The body (sadly missing the skull and end of the tail) was found enclosed in a large (8 foot by 18 foot--5,000 pound!) concretion and had recently been removed from its resting place and given a new home in the recently constructed Rex Annex.

 

       

 

It was a pretty impressive jacketed specimen fitted with a custom built metal frame to hold the multi-layered plaster and burlap jacket. JP told me that they needed two cranes to be able to flip the specimen upside down so that volunteers could begin the labor intensive process of removing the concrete-like matrix to expose the articulated bones. JP said there has already been about 3 years of prep time spent getting the specimen to the state it is currently. They have a small model of a T. rex near the specimen to demonstrate the portion of the skeleton represented in the concretion--missing both extremities and with only one leg bent back out of position but remarkably complete otherwise.

 

       

 

There are only a little over four dozen T. rex specimens that have been found and most of them from places like Canada or Montana and South Dakota. Lee Rex is the first found in Wyoming that will stay in Wyoming. If anybody deserves a Golden Drool Bucket award, JP certainly does for this impressive find.

 

   

 

       

 

 

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Leaving awe inspiring fossils like a T-rex aside, we set our sites on smaller quarry when we visited a ranch not far from where we had been collecting tumbler material the day before. JP knows the rancher and has permission to collect on this property. He walked this rancher's property for days before locating fossil exposures of the Steele Shale (Campanian Stage of the late Cretaceous--approximately 83-82 mya). We were here to find some baculite segments. Baculites being shelled mollusks similar to ammonites that had been uncoiled and stretched out into linear shapes.

 

We followed JP onto ever more poorly graded dirt roads till he came to a stop and announced we were here. This would become a repeated occurrence over the couple of days were were lucky to be able to spend with JP. I'm sure I'd never have found these locations and would have turned back long before if it were not for JP leading the way. After a short hike away from the cars we were out in fossil bearing country and were eagerly eyeing the ground looking for the search image that indicated baculite fragments. This is wide open country and the small white spot at the horizon in the center of the middle photo below is JP in the distance--we cover a lot of territory hunting for fossils.

 

       

 

JP scored first when his well-trained eyes started picking up signs of baculites leaking out of exploded concretions (this was to be the key for finding baculites here). He proclaimed his day was made when, within minutes of reaching the fossil producing area, he had spotted a pretty little ammonite. He said that these were much less common than the baculites and he only had a few of this little species from this site in his collection.

 

 

Before long we had the search image and started to find decomposing concretions spilling out their baculites from within. I even managed to find a partial concretion still packed with several baculite segments.

 

       

 

       

 

Toward the end of our visit to this site we got to an area that was loaded with baculite fragments. We managed to find some nice pieces that showed the fascinating feathered suture lines and some with remnants of the original aragonite from the shell. I also came across an interesting impression of a ribbed bivalve that was something new for us at this site.

 

       

 

       

 

Our best find of the site was part of the inner whorl of an ammonite that Tammy had noticed. It's dark color is what caught her attention first. We were going to go visit an ammonite site later in the day but Tammy had already scored her first.

 

   

 

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After getting our fill of baculites and whetting our appetite for ammonites, we headed back to Casper to refuel and grab a quick lunch before driving 1h30m east to the small town of Lusk near the South Dakota border. We checked into a motel where we would spend the night and then headed out to the north to visit one of the ranchers he knows in the area. We found our rancher host at home and working to unload 1,500 pound rolls of hay that he was storing for his cattle for the coming winter season. After chatting for a few minutes we were off again on a series of roads--paved and unpaved as we crossed large empty expanses of land broken only by the occasional ridge or cluster of cattle. We finally arrived at our destination which was a site that JP knew where concretion could be found that contained ammonites. We pulled off to the side of the road and prepared to walk out into the field in search for concretions that had not already either been split by weathering or by JP and his fossil-hunting guests on a previous visit. We didn't even manage to leave the roadside before JP spotted a large bowling ball size concretion weathering out of the ground. In no time JP had it dug free and had given it some mighty whacks with his rock hammer to crack this concretion open to reveal its secrets.

 

       

 

 

A little ways away I had also spotted what appeared to be a concretion and likewise extricated it from the ground and gave it some whacks with my hammer. It too split open to reveal some nice little ammonites.  This was like shooting fish in a barrel with ammonite-laden concretions every few steps (or so I thought). After storing some of the concretion fragments in our car we headed off into the field to see what else we could find. We did a lot of walking and looking but were never able to match the results of what we found within steps of leaving our vehicles.

 

 

 

       

 

   

 

 

It was now getting later in the day and we were soon to run out of sunlight so, with some ammonite concretion pieces already collected, we decided to check out a new area that JP had always wanted to inspect but hadn't had the opportunity yet. We planned on looking in the gullies at about the same height as the outcrop he knew was producing ammonites nearby. We moved the cars and went off to inspect a fresh area. It took some time wandering around before we started to see signs of fossil outcrops. At first we only spotted a few baculite pieces here and there. I found one that had really nice suture lines which went into the collection bag.

 

       

 

It was starting to get late and we were beginning to loop back toward the car when I spotted some rocks breaking out of the grassy plain on a bit of an eroding vertical surface. I'd been tuned into the corrugated surface of the ammonites from the area and a small concretion quickly caught my attention--it contained an ammonite and had split open revealing the prize within. It didn't take too much additional searching of the area to come up with one more piece of this concretion completing enough of the ammonite that it should be worth the effort to glue the fragments back together and try to prep out the nearly complete ammonite. It was a fitting end to our first day collecting with JP and I felt I'd earned a pizza and a few beers.

 

   

 

   

 

 

[Ludwigia]

This is really entertaining

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September 19 (Tuesday)

 

After Tammy and JP had had their morning coffee and some pastries for breakfast (I chose Coke and cold slices of pizza and was just as happy), we topped-off the fuel and headed out north of Lusk again to another rancher even more remotely located (if that is even possible) at the end of a series of unpaved roads. I don't know if was actually in the middle of nowhere, but I'm pretty sure you could see it from where we were. We paid this rancher our "trespass fee" to allow us to go out on his property and have a look for something I've always wanted to hunt---dinosaurs!

 

We passed by the spot where JP and his lovely bride Becky had gotten hitched back on the 4th of July last year. For those who missed that posting, I include the link here for a great read:

 

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/70213-dinosaur-wedding/

 

When we finally reached our destination we stopped the cars and had a look around. I didn't realize dinosaurs lived this far out of town--it must have taken them days to drive into town for groceries. It was a lovely vista that some might have found empty and desolate but we knew better as we could almost sense the dinosaur fossils and were bursting with excitement at this opportunity to not only dig for them but actually keep our finds (the advantage of digging--with permission, of course--on private property and not BLM land). We followed JP along the gullies and into the spot we'd first collect at and along the way got our first view of the pale orange coloration that dinosaur bones appear when freshly exposed. The two small bumps in the horizon to the right of the lens flare in the last of the four photos below are the tiny silhouettes of our vehicles as we marched away from them heading toward our first collecting spot.

 

 

   

 

   

 

When we reached the spot in the eroded wash that we were going to look for evidence of dinosaur material, the first fossils we spotted were the sturdy bony ganoid scales of garfish. Tammy loves finding the parallelogram-shaped scales when we hunt for fossils in the Peace River so her search image for these was already primed. We also found several pieces of the distinctively textured carapace of soft-shelled turtles. This was a much much older species than the fossil species we find in the Peace River (or the living ones that we spot while out on the river) but it was an unexpected (but welcome) connection to something familiar on this day of new experiences.

 

       

 

Before long we had our first interesting dinosaur finds (beyond the few pieces of unidentifiable chunk-o-saurus bone we'd already greedily collected--being dino-amateurs). If JP had not informed me that these unassuming teeth fragments belonged to a childhood favorite of mine (and many), I would not have known that I was holding an actual piece of Triceratops tooth--this day was exceeding my expectations by the minute! This was followed by a Hadrosaur tooth!

 

   

 

Things were about to go off the charts though when the next dinosaur tooth that we found was cooler still. At first, JP thought it might be a crocodilian tooth due to the serrations but when I plucked it out of the ground where it was so cheerfully awaiting our arrival and let JP inspect it he realized it was some sort of theropod tooth--a carnivorous dinosaur! My mind was blown. I'll take some clearer macro photos of this tooth soon and hopefully the experts in such things on this forum will be able to hazard a guess as to who once owned this tooth.

 

       

 

       

 

 

[digit]

We continued to inspect the walls of this washout riverbed and see what was still embedded in them or had dropped out to the ground at their base. I was having a great load of fun and, although I was totally out of my normal fossil hunting element, I was quickly getting the knack and finding interesting things large or small. JP had identified this chunk of dinosaur bone as a chevron from the underside of a dinosaur tail. We put some consolidant on this fossil and planned on collecting it on our return. I'm assuming Hadrosaurid as these seem to be common in this area. I also found my first ossified (calcified) dinosaur tendon which was pretty cool.

 

       

 

A little while later I found an area with lots of small chunk-o-saur fragments and looking a little closer spotted some familiar crocodilian teeth--tiny, but familiar to someone who has spent a fair amount of time sifting in the Peace River.

 

   

 

   

 

 

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JP went off ahead to try to relocate an area where he knew that part of a Triceratops had eroded out of the exposure. We walked along this rugged yet beautiful terrain till we finally caught-up with JP announcing that he'd relocated the Trike. The little red dot in the third photo below is Tammy nearly camouflaged in the terrain.

 

       

 

JP had collected a portion of the Triceratops frill years before and what was left was badly eroded into a nearly indistinguishable scattering of dinosaur fragments. Had JP not found this spot and collected from it earlier there would be little way of knowing what type of dinosaur this once was. We collected a small sample of this as we could at least give it an identity which was more than we could do for most of our chunk-o-saurus finds.

 

   

 

   

 

On the way back, we collected the chevron fragment that we'd stabilized earlier.

 

       

 

It was interesting to view the recent erosion probably due to rains or just gravity finally getting its way. The fresh rock fall was sharp and angular compared to a nearby fall that had already softened and been taken over by vegetation. Erosion (and gravity) are two forces to keep in mind when collecting in this area as it is always wise to know what is overhead while you are taking a whack at the wall with your hammer to release some fossil prize.

 

   

   

 

 

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The weather was starting to turn and the dark clouds were closing in on us from several directions. It was well past lunchtime and we decided to return to our cars to have a snack and see what the weather looked like from that vantage point. Although it looked a bit dicey we decided to have a look at a spot in the opposite direction from where we'd been in the morning. This spot, JP informed me, was a good bone bed and we'd likely find some larger bone fragments there.

 

   

 

It wasn't long till JP was proved correct. The distinctive color and texture of dinosaur bone fragments were quite apparent at this new site. We started looking around in the areas where JP had spotted interesting finds in the past.

 

       

 

 

The wind was really starting to whip up at this point and it was hard to keep the sand from blowing into your eyes. We had a few waves of a heavy cold rain and it looked like we were going to get chased out of there early. It had taken so much effort to get to this spot that we pressed on for a little while longer hoping it would blow over. To some extent it did but the threat of heavier rains loomed on the horizon in the form of dark heavy clouds. We searched around to see what else we could find at this spot and high (but not too high) on one of the hoodoo formations at the level where there was a more gravely band, we spotted a dinosaur bone that was exposed but which continued into the sides of the little slot where it had eroded out. The matrix was as hard as concrete here and it would have taken us all day to try to collect the adjoining pieces that went into the wall on both sides of the exposed pieces. Out of expediency, I decided to only collect the low-hanging fruit which in this case were the two pieces that had already eroded out of the matrix and were relatively loose.

 

       

 

Tammy (the sensible one) was suggesting we start wrapping things up as the weather was not optimal and we still had a long drive back to Casper that night. While we were gathering our specimens JP came by to say that he was inspecting an area around the corner and had found something interesting. We headed over and began to dig out a larger chocolate brown bone that JP was able to identify as part of a Hadrosaur humerus which Tammy dubbed with the alliterative name of 'Hattie' the Hadrosaur humerus. We spend some time removing the matrix around this bone and trying to consolidate with some vinac solution--polyvinyl acetate (PVA) diluted in acetone. It took a little time and effort to expose the entire fragment but soon I had it in hand and it was soon wrapped up in aluminum foil for protection and was added to our growing collection of 'baked potatoes' (though this was one big tater)! My nascent 'Mountain Man' scraggly bear and my wind-blown hair make for a better (and more accurate) picture of me than any class photo or drivers license could ever portray.

 

       

 

   

   

 

   

 

With our finds wrapped and stored securely in a backpack for the hike back to the car we (uncharacteristically) had the opportunity for a group photo of the two of us to prove that we were really both here at the same time.

 

 

We made our way back to Casper and, after a shower to clean up, we had the opportunity to go out to dinner at a nice little Indian restaurant in Casper where we were joined by JP's better half, Becky. We had a great meal with delightful conversation with two of the nicest folks in Casper (and likely, Wyoming).

 

[Doctor Mud]

What a great story and fossil hunting adventure! Thanks for sharing with us.

 

[Calvin Jenkins]

   any chance to pick up a dino tooth, especially a carnivore would be a thrill hard to beat.  (and to do it with a spouse is even more incredible!.....atleast my wife let's me hunt some... when I don't tell her.... 

[Nimravis]

Great trip report and pics.

[digit]

September 20 (Wednesday)

 

After two great days in the field with JP having experiences that we'll remember for a lifetime, today was to be a travel day. We needed to make it from Casper in the east to Kemmerer in the west part of the state. Though the day was filled with lots of great podcasts that we'd been waiting for a good roadtrip to work through, I had something else special planned for this day so it was not all just about putting miles behind us. I had learned (on this forum and on other places) about a tiny town called Wamsutter in the middle of the state off Interstate 80. This town seem to be here solely to tend to the many small oil pumping stations that dot the landscape around the town. Among the petroleum pumps and the muddy roads and the grazing heards of Pronghorn Antelope hides a secret treasure to those who know--"Turritella Agate".

 

   

 

 

The name Turritella Agate is actually a bit of a misnomer. This fossiliferous black/brown agate is part of the same Green River Formation which contains the fossil fishes which we would hunt for at our next destination. Originally, people thought the gastropod (snail) shells that were so abundant in this agate were from the saltwater genus Turritella but the lakes that formed the Green River Formation were freshwater and this species is actually the freshwater snail, Elimia tenera. The original name still persists and so we went off hunting "Turritella Agate" just south of Wamsutter. Provided with location information from several TFF members we were sure we'd be able to located the spot where it could be collected. We were doing fine till Tammy's old iPad started acting up again. We use this and various apps (including Google Maps) to navigate when we are away from home in a rental car. It seems that periodically her iPad's GPS receiver starts malfunctioning and our progress along the roads of our planned course freezes. We've found that rebooting the device usually works (but sometimes needs frequent restarts). We initially overshot the small town of Wamsutter and hand to double back when we didn't notice that our progress along I-80 had not updated in several miles. It was more difficult when this navigational interruption occurred while we were off on nameless dirt roads out in the oil fields. Despite several wrong or missed turns and a bit of confusion toward the end, we finally made our way up to the top of the proper ridge and arrived at our desired GPS point.

 

       

 

We parked the car and bundled up as it was chilly out (we'd passed some snow-covered roofs in the towns along the route to Wamsutter earlier). It didn't take long to spot our objective laying all around at our feet. The loose gastropod fossils were scattered all around on the ground. In some the shell had worn away and you could easily see the translucent whitish chalcedony that had infilled the shells.

 

       

 

We both continued to pick out interesting glassy gastropods and drop them into our collecting bags. Tammy had picked up some chopsticks at a Chinese buffet we'd gone to in Casper and these proved to be useful in popping out some of the little fossils dislodging them from their muddy surroundings. Before long I started to find some chunks of the agate which were loaded with the fossil shells. I had wanted to collect some of the solid agate as well to try polishing. I'll try some pieces in my rock tumbler to see how that works out and I have friends who have lots of lapidary equipment so I'm hoping I can trade some material for a nice polished slab or cabochon. The big trick of collecting here is trying to avoid the ubiquitous antelope pellets that are nearly as common as the fossils.

 

       

 

       

 

It wasn't long before we had filled our bags and had all that we thought we could need of this beautiful little fossil. I was really glad that we'd flown Southwest and that they still have the common decency to allow you to check two bags for free--I could see we were going to need it.

 

   

 

We backtracked our way to I-80 and had lunch in a little Mexican Cantina & Restaurant. Tammy had to check in with work and I needed to catch-up on emails so we made use of the free wifi in a place we never thought we'd stop for long (and most pass right by on the interstate). We enjoyed our brief visit to Wamsutter but we soon on the road again and headed for another small town--Kemmerer. We arrived in good time and drove through town to see how much it had changed (if any) since we were last here in 2009. This town relies heavily on petroleum dollars and the current low cost of a barrel of crude has Kemmerer in the bust phase of the boom-and-bust cyclical economy related to the energy sector. The small antiques shop with the fossils in the basement called Creative creations where we had met George Putnam back in 2006 and 2009 was closed down which was sad but we later heard that George was still working in at the fossil beds outside of town. Kemmerer is well known to fossil fans as one of the premier destinations for hunting Green River Formation fossil fish (and other types of fossils). It also is the birthplace of the J.C. Penney Company chain of retail stores that started in 1902 selling clothes and equipment to miners in the area.

 

   

 

[ynot]

WOW, doing great so far!

[digit]

September 21 (Thursday)

 

It rained the previous evening (which is not conducive for splitting rock in the quarry nor getting to the quarry on unpaved roads). We were hoping that the rain hadn't saturated the area of the quarries too much as we headed out bright and early to go do some "fishing" in the quarry @sseth owns (American Fossil Quarry). It was quite chilly this morning and we bundled up and drove off to the quarry. The car's automatic tire pressure sensors were complaining that the tires were under-inflated as the cold temps had reduced the pressure in the tires. We pressed on and the tires warmed up in due course. We made one major mistake this morning which we were soon about to realize. I had located the GPS coordinates to the quarry and Tammy had entered it into her iPad (the GPS now working again) and plotted the route to the quarry. We were staying in the Best Western that was actually just outside of Kemmerer and the route that our navigational software had arranged for us took us west on 30 before directing us on smaller and smaller roads in an approach to the quarry from the south. The roads soon tipped the critical balance at being more rut than road and it was rather dicey trying to stay on the road without dropping a tire into a two foot deep chasm in the middle of the road. It was at this point that we started to suspect that something had gone horribly wrong. This started to remind us of the ancient goat paths that Google Maps had suggested for us while navigating in Greece a few months earlier. I pushed on with ever more hesitancy unable to believe that this was an appropriate route to a commercial quarry. We finally crossed over a set of railroad tracks and were greeted with a series of postings with encouraging warnings saying that if we were trying to get to the pay-dig fossil quarries that we had gone the wrong way adding that there were "bad roads" from here. The roads that had taken us to this point were something a level or two below terrible and approaching suicidal so we very carefully turned the car around and retraced our steps.

 

Luckily, I had also printed out the directions to Seth's quarry as presented on their website. I did this as a backup assuming that technology would get us there and placing way too much faith in what Google Maps considers a navigable road. Before long we were passing our hotel again and headed for downtown Kemmerer. Once out of Kemmerer we followed the directions from the website and the surroundings started to look vaguely familiar--like some place we'd been some 8 years ago while following George Putnam out to the Warfield Quarry. In the end, we only ended up losing a little over an hour and we followed the last of the signs (and much better graded roads) to arrive at the American Fossil Quarry. There we met Seth's parents who, being retired, manage the quarry during the week while Seth is working at his day job down in Utah. We told them of our misguided attempt to approach the quarry from the south and they shook their heads as I described our route. I mentioned that we finally turned around after seeing the warning signs but that more signs earlier on (like when we left the paved road) would have been more helpful. They said that they placed signs all along the route as Google has repeatedly encouraged people to take that more dangerous route. Most of the signs are on BLM land and apparently the government doesn't take kindly to folks posting signs on public lands (even when they are well meaning warning signs). Apparently, emails to try to get Google to forget that route from the south have gone unanswered as well and so I'm not the first and likely won't be the last two try to reach the quarry from the wrong direction. They said that if we had been able to make it further along the road suggested by Google that we would have ended up at the foot of the mountain on which the quarry is located and would have had to scale a steep and unpassable slope. I'm glad we had the website directions and just drove an extra hour to allow the outside temps to warm up a bit.

 

The quarry was very similar to ones we'd been to in the past and after a bit of information as to where the piles of rock were that were pulled for us to split and after being given our tools, we were set off to go split some oil shale.

 

       

 

       

 

It had snowed and rained at the quarry within the last week and there wasn't much sun to dry out the slabs of rock so it was going to be difficult to split cleanly. This is something that I had remembered from my earlier visits. Wet rock tends to crumble but dry rock splits more cleanly on the seams making easier to disassemble into thin layers while looking for fish fossils. We were going to have our work cur out for us. We were shown where the 'split fish' layer of rock was stacked and where the 'sandwich' layer that lies above it in the quarry was laid out in long piles. This upper layer has less of the common fish species but the rare species are apparently more common in this layer so this is the rock we chose to work with. We had hunted the Green River Formation twice before (some years ago) and already had a few small specimens of the common Knightia and Diplomysus genera that we kept. We were after more interesting species and so devoted our time to the less productive material that had a greater chance of turning up one of the 'rare' species.

 

The process is pretty simple. Laying the rock on its side you place the thin chisel-like blade about an inch or so from one side of the rock and tap it with the hammer. You repeat this moving along the rock hoping to see a natural seam open up nearby where you are trying to split the rock. Once you have a seam you try to follow that along the rock face so that you can (hopefully) peel off an entire layer of rock which, with luck, will reveal something interesting inside.

 

       

 

       

 

It seems that it always works out that layers that break away cleanly in a single piece never have anything interesting in them (except for a few isolated scales or a fish coprolite). The layers with interesting fishes always seem to be at the edge (and are sometimes destroyed like this nice Diplo that had some deconstructive surgery performed when my blade ended up hitting it at the worst possible place before it split. We continued to peel apart the rocks looking for something interesting.

 

       

 

[digit]

Here's another one that split well and I had high hopes for but which did not deliver.

 

   

 

Tammy was having some better luck with some of the larger blocks. She revealed a couple of layers with some Knightia and a really tiny 'ghost' juvenile fish that might be a Diplomystus.

 

       

 

       

 

It started to warm up and we were able to shed some layers of clothes. For a moment I was almost hot and then the sun disappeared behind the clouds again. I continued to slice up the blocks into thin layers but without finding much of interest. My technique was getting better and either the rock was drying out or I was able to split better and thinner the more I worked.

 

       

 

I finally heard Tammy give an exclamation that stopped me working and brought me over to have a look. She had finally found a rarer species but unfortunately it was located on the edge of the block that she was working on and not in the middle. There was no telling where the rest of this fish might be hiding in the quarry. Moments later she had hooked into another fish. This one appeared to be the back corner of something large like a Phareodus or a similar rare species of which I have little experience. Not a keeper but still, nice to see something larger.

 

       

 

In the end we split a lot of rock and found a few keepers (but left a lot that we didn't take for the quarry to use for material for schools and science classes). We enjoyed our time and would have stayed a bit later if the skies hadn't opened up and the slate gray clouds unloosed some bursts of heavy rain. We could have piled back on more jackets and kept going for a bit more but it wasn't our comfort at the quarry that motivated us to leave but rather the thought of the miles of unpaved and rutted road that lay between us and the paved highway that lead back to Kemmerer. These roads get notoriously slick and dangerous when wet and we didn't want to wait around much longer. We said our goodbyes to Seth's parents and navigated our way back to town with windshield wipers flapping at full speed under a gorgeous double rainbow with only a minimal of slipping and sliding and only a few white knuckle moments. Tammy had it worse as I was concentrating on driving (she really didn't feel like taking photos at this point so that rainbow will live on only in our memories). When we got back to Kemmerer we stopped into a manual car wash and left behind about 50 pounds of mud from out of our wheel wells and undercarriage.

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

[Miocene_Mason]

Thanks for taking us with you! Amazing finds as well! shame about the broken rare fishies, still nice imo. 

[digit]

September 22 (Friday)

 

We got up early and checked in online to get out boarding positions at Southwest before we checked out of our Kemmerer hotel. We could have driven directly to Salt Lake City where we were leaving from the following morning but we had the whole day to ourselves and I was in the mood to visit some spots in the southeastern corner of Idaho that were too far for us to reach on our recent trip to Idaho to see the total solar eclipse. I broke out my Rockhounding Idaho book that had not given us particularly good results on that trip and I consulted the sites that were now within reach on an extended detour through Idaho en route to SLC. The sites that interested me in Idaho were much older than the Eocene Green River Formation (or even the Cretaceous dinosaur and ammonite sites from earlier in the week). We were interested in some of the older Paleozoic sites (Cambrian-Ordovician) that we might stop at to hunt for trilobites, brachiopods or horn corals. I reviewed the sites in the book and decided on one that had the best chance of actually panning out (very few of the book's sites led to the indicated treasures in our past experience). In the end I selected a site north of Soda Springs that was an old quarry on public land that was supposed to be a great/easy place to find brachiopods and horn corals. We had only hunted the Ordovician once before at the St. Leon road cut in Indiana and I thought I'd like to try that geologic age again.

 

It was very overcast this morning as a strong storm front was approaching the area. I'd later learn that Kemmerer got a blanket of snow that likely ended the season. This is twice we've been out in the quarry on the last day of the season (the first back in 2006). We really need to revisit Kemmerer earlier on in the season and try sweating rather than shivering while hunting fossils there. We drove through intermittent rains and didn't see much traffic at all on the roads we were on until we came up over a small rise and saw cars in front of us that were stopped. We soon learned the reason why and were on our way after a brief surreal pause the likes of which you don't tend to see in major cities. We made it to the quarry with only a minor glitch with the iPad navigation. I had been watching the temperature drop all day and we were now at a balmy 35F at noon. We bundled up (I even wore gloves for the first time) and we parked the car at the quarry to go look for fossils. After about 10 minutes of fruitless searching Tammy suggested we burn the rockhounding book as a means to keep warm as it would at least then be useful. She (being the smart one) waved and headed back to the warmth of the car were snacks and hot tea awaited her). I pressed on as that's what I do.

       

 

   

 

I decided it would be a suitably stupid thing to do to climb up the slope of loose rock to see what was at the top. Surprisingly, I was careful enough not to receive any major bodily injuries for this rash decision. Instead I spotted my first occurrence of a horn coral solidly cemented in the matrix. Before long I had spotted some others. I also spotted what appeared to be some sort of a branching bryozoan.

 

   

 

       

 

 

 

 

[digit]

After (safely) climbing back down the slope I now had a search image of what the horn corals looked like at this site. I wanted to look around to see if I could find any that had broken free of their bulky and heavy matrix so that they'd be collectible. I looked for a long while but finally spotted what I was after--not a great specimen but proof that these could free themselves from their rock encasements. I found a few free horn corals and a couple of chunks of rock that were densely packed with some smaller horn corals. These made the extra time spent freezing my butt off well worth the effort.

 

 

       

 

Sometimes I think it was just fun seeing if I could spot the fossils among the rocks. I always enjoy developing a new search image and trying it out to see how quickly I can start spotting hidden gems.

 

   

 

   

 

 

       

 

 

       

 

 

   

 

   

 

I finally ran dry and stopped finding the little horn corals and it was time to go. I had not seen a single brachiopod the entire time and so once again question the author on this. It was a great diversion for the day and I had plenty of time to warm up in the car on the ride back down to SLC. Utah would be the fourth state we'd pass through on this roadtrip and I was happy to reach our hotel near the airport to get cleaned-up and head out for some dinner. After dinner I started packing up our finds. We went through plenty of zip-top bags which I sealed with a good wrapping of packing tape so they would not accidentally open up and disgorge rocks all throughout my suitcases. In the end I think we did pretty well for this trip. We put 1750 miles on the rental car, met some new people including some great TFF members, and packed up a goodly amount of Wyoming to take back with us.

 

 

With the help of my handheld digital luggage scale I was able to expertly pack two suitcases with 50.0 pounds of rock and dirty clothes (as packing material). I reserved one roll-on for some of the more delicate fish plates and dinosaur bones that I didn't want to trust to checked baggage (and packed it to near 40 pounds). In the end though I still had over 50 pounds of rocks left and only a single suitcase left to contain them. Airlines don't like suitcases over the magical weight of 50 pounds and so our simplest option was to head to the nearest Walmart to pick up another suitcase. We found an inexpensive hardsided roll-on and brought that back to continue packing. In the end I checked 4 bags within ounces of the 50 pound limit and rolled on another 40 pounds. This is why I prefer to fly Southwest within the states as we never travel light on our little "expeditions" (especially on the return).

 

My roll-on was a big hit with the TSA and, as expected, was selected for "further screening" after passing through the X-ray machine. I got to see the image and the fossils did look kind of cool through the Xray. The TSA inspector unrolled some of the dinosaur fossils that were wrapped in layers of thick shirts for padding. After he was satisfied that the contents were innocuous and listening to my (much more brief) stories about collecting in Wyoming, I packed up and we soon boarded the flight back home with a side stop in Phoenix.

 

This trip worked out better than I had expected and we had a lot of great experiences and met some kindred spirits along the way. Without the information (and contacts) available through TFF a trip like this would never have been possible. This trip has checked several things off the bucket list but also whetted my appetite for going back and trying my luck at these locations sometime in the future. If I do make it back, you can be sure I'll post a very long and highly illustrated trip report. 

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

[ynot]

Great trip report Ken!

Thanks for taking Us along.

 

Looks like You do better when the sun and moon are not fighting for dominance of the daytime sky.

[doushantuo]

Agreed,entertaining and extremely well documented photographically.