Trilobite Hunting in Nevada and Utah

[Sagebrush Steve]

My wife and I just got back from a 1700-mile road trip from our home in Northern California to do some trilobite hunting in Utah and Nevada.  It was a 5-day trip, with a total of about 8 hours of digging spread across 2 days, but well worth it. I will give you the highlights here.  After driving across California, we spent the first night in Reno, then headed out on Highway 50 toward the U-Dig fossil quarry out of Delta, Utah.  We spent the second night in Ely, Nevada.  Along the way, we stopped in Austin for lunch and helped the owner of a nearby trading post identify an unknown fish fossil they had for sale (you can read about that here).

 

We got to U-Dig mid-morning of the third day and spent half a day there.  The last 20 miles is a drive along a well-maintained dirt road (good enough that with my stock 4WD SUV I could drive 50-55 mph along most of it).  Other people on this forum have posted about their experiences at U-Dig, so I won’t spend a lot of time repeating the basics.  We were pleased with the support we got from Gene and if you’ve never been there, I would recommend it.  This was my second time there (the first was 8 years ago), and my wife’s first time.  I have to say we weren’t as successful as on my last visit, but still got a good haul.  Most, however, were only molts or partials, we got very few full trilobites.  I’ve included some photos below.  Lots of prep work still remaining, and I’ll probably split several of the slabs again to see what else I might find.  If you go, one word of advice.  They will provide you with a chisel-edge rock hammer, a 2-lb sledge and large chisel, and a bucket to hold everything you find.  I brought all my own stuff and am glad I did.  They show you how to split the shale with the chisel edge of the hammer, but I found that to be a fairly coarse way to do it.  I found it much easier to use thin rock-splitting chisels like these.  They are cheap, so I’d recommend you take one or two along.

 

The next day we headed out to Caliente, Nevada, to dig at the Oak Springs Trilobite Site just off Highway 93.  There is no fee to dig here, which means there is no one to advise you, you’re on your own.  This is another Cambrian site with the possibility of finding several species of Olenellus trilobites.  We got there just after lunch and spent the afternoon there.  The parking area is about a quarter mile from the highway down a good dirt road (but not a 50-mph road!).  Most people park there and walk a quarter mile along a developed path to the dig.  If you’ve done your homework, though, you’ll know you can continue another short distance and park just at the base of the swale where the trilobites are.  That makes it an easy walk, especially if you are carrying a lot of tools.  in addition to my tool bag, I was carrying a Harbor Freight pry bar and my brand new Estwing PaleoPick, so I was happy to shorten the walk.  You can tell when you are at the site because it is littered with broken pieces of shale and there are potholes all around where people have been digging.  We spent the first couple of hours without any luck as I moved from one location to another.  Then I moved to yet another location and immediately saw a cephalon so I knew my luck was changing.  It turned out to be a mini mother-lode of cephalons but no full trilobites, which apparently are very rare.  While we found a few cephalons among the loose pieces of shale, I had much better success digging out larger slabs and splitting them.  I haven’t yet gone through them in detail to make good identifications but they look primarily like Olenellus species, which are what you will predominantly find.  Some sample photos below.  Given that I didn’t have to pay to dig and it took considerable effort to find anything, I have to say this was the more enjoyable day of digging.  But if you go, be aware that many people who go there don’t find anything.  The day we were there I only saw one other person.  (He tagged along with my success to dig nearby.)

 

On the way home, we took Nevada Highway 375, known as “The Extraterrestrial Highway” because it runs close to the infamous Area 51.  We stopped in the tiny hamlet of Rachel to visit the Little A’le’Inn, a souvenir shop, diner, and motel.  If you get the chance, be sure to stop in.  On my last U-Dig adventure I spent a night there, which was quite an experience (you can read about it here).   I don’t think it has changed much in the last 8 years except there were more tourists there this time.

 

Overall, we had a great time.  Once I sort through everything I will post a few samples for help with identification.

 

The sign along US Highway 6:

 

U-Dig office:

 

Steve digging (friendly dogs belong to another digger):

 

The haul back at home:

 

Elrathia kingii (I think it's a molt):

Small Elrathia kingii:

 

Peronopsis (needs more prep):

 

[Sagebrush Steve]

Oak Springs turnoff sign:

 

Steve digging:

 

Slabs back home:

 

Olenellus cephalons:

 

Another Olenellus:

 

If you get the chance to drive the Extraterrestrial Highway, be sure to stop in at the Little A'le'inn:

 

[Nimravis]

Great trip report and I really like the pics and your finds. Thanks for sharing.

[Wrangellian]

Hmm, a few more spots to stop at on the way to/from the 2024 eclipse...

I love how you have so many fossil sites with big signs down there - I can't think of many up this way (well, none offhand) - although that could result in being overly picked over.

[ynot]

Nice report, sounds like You had a good trip, with some good finds.

[Malcolmt]

Great report... love the AleInn sign... makes me wish I could do that type of trip someday.....

[Fossil-Hound]

@Sagebrush Steve excellent report. U-Dig is a really awesome site and I've never left dissapointed. Looking forward to your prep. For a cheap route I found an 8220 Dremel that does the job.

[Sagebrush Steve]

31 minutes ago, Fossil-Hound said:

@Sagebrush Steve excellent report. U-Dig is a really awesome site and I've never left dissapointed. Looking forward to your prep. For a cheap route I found an 8220 Dremel that does the job.

Thanks for the tip, @Fossil Hound, I've been thinking about buying that very Dremel.  What tool do you use in it to prep your U-Dig fossils?

15 hours ago, Wrangellian said:

Hmm, a few more spots to stop at on the way to/from the 2024 eclipse...

I love how you have so many fossil sites with big signs down there - I can't think of many up this way (well, none offhand) - although that could result in being overly picked over.

It helps that the sites are a good day's drive from any appreciable civilization.  Keeps the riff-raff out.  Even so, things are starting to get picked over.  I need to make sure my return trips aren't too many years away.

[Fossil-Hound]

@Sagebrush Steve I would recommend the wire brush. They are circular. Make sure to wear a mask and take it nice and easy on it.

[Monica]

Nice trilobites!  I'd also love to expand my fossil-hunting terrain to include such places as you've hunted in - perhaps one day when Viola is a little bit older... (I just hope that she's still interested in fossils then )

 

Thanks for sharing your report!

 

Monica

[Sagebrush Steve]

7 hours ago, Monica said:

Nice trilobites!  I'd also love to expand my fossil-hunting terrain to include such places as you've hunted in - perhaps one day when Viola is a little bit older... (I just hope that she's still interested in fossils then )

 

Thanks for sharing your report!

 

Monica

It doesn't bum me out too much to know that I drive days to dig for hours to get a meager lot of specimens--mostly matrix with a few fossils mixed in--while others on this forum just have to walk outside their door and pick them up by the bucketful. 

 

And Monica, best wishes in keeping Viola interested. she may go through a phase where she isn't, but if you do everything you can now to excite her she will come back to it! 

[Malcolmt]

Steve, I have yet to find a place that has trilobites (or anything else I tend to collect) by the bucketful... however, I consider any day in the field to be a good day.... as we don't know how long we will be fit enough to continue doing this passion of ours. At 63 (and I think still reasonably fit) there will definitely come a time when I will have to transition to surface collecting or just prepping for others. I joke about it all the time with my 60 year old collecting partner, contemplating how we will be doing this when we are 80.. I currently am of the opinion that both of us put a lot of 40 year olds to shame......

 

As for what is a good day any day I find even a single complete trilobite, cystoid or crinoid is a good day........ This past Saturday for instance I found only two items that I took home. A 2/3 com[plete isotelus. (which in the field appeared like it might be complete). The buried cephalon was not there. Also found a  nice pretty much complete ceraurus whose buried cephalon turned out to be a bit disarticulated. That one is going to a new home in the USA with a couple of other items as soon as I finish prepping it. The days when you hit the jackpot and bring home 10, 15 or 20 real nice keepers are few and far between. Those who know me realize that I am picky about what I carry out and I tend to give away a lot of items in the field to others that might not be having a very good day..

[Sagebrush Steve]

1 hour ago, Malcolmt said:

Steve, I have yet to find a place that has trilobites (or anything else I tend to collect) by the bucketful... however, I consider any day in the field to be a good day.... as we don't know how long we will be fit enough to continue doing this passion of ours. At 63 (and I think still reasonably fit) there will definitely come a time when I will have to transition to surface collecting or just prepping for others. I joke about it all the time with my 60 year old collecting partner, contemplating how we will be doing this when we are 80.. I currently am of the opinion that both of us put a lot of 40 year olds to shame......

 

As for what is a good day any day I find even a single complete trilobite, cystoid or crinoid is a good day........ This past Saturday for instance I found only two items that I took home. A 2/3 com[plete isotelus. (which in the field appeared like it might be complete). The buried cephalon was not there. Also found a  nice pretty much complete ceraurus whose buried cephalon turned out to be a bit disarticulated. That one is going to a new home in the USA with a couple of other items as soon as I finish prepping it. The days when you hit the jackpot and bring home 10, 15 or 20 real nice keepers are few and far between. Those who know me realize that I am picky about what I carry out and I tend to give away a lot of items in the field to others that might not be having a very good day..

I'm sure you are right, but I see plenty of people who post on this forum saying "we went out for a morning at the XYZ River and here is what we found."  They then proceed to post a photo showing at least 400 shark's teeth, vertebrae, etc., and lament about how they would have found more but they had to go home for lunch...  Of course shark teeth aren't trilobites, so maybe that's the difference.

 

And I agree that any day you find anything is a good day.  I might even extend that to say that any day I can be out in the wilderness, breathing the fresh air and admiring the stars at night, is a good day even if I don't find anything.  (And I've got you beat by a few years but I still plan to be out there when I'm 80!)

[Seaforth]

14 hours ago, Sagebrush Steve said:

I'm sure you are right, but I see plenty of people who post on this forum saying "we went out for a morning at the XYZ River and here is what we found."  They then proceed to post a photo showing at least 400 shark's teeth, vertebrae, etc., and lament about how they would have found more but they had to go home for lunch...  Of course shark teeth aren't trilobites, so maybe that's the difference.

 

And I agree that any day you find anything is a good day.  I might even extend that to say that any day I can be out in the wilderness, breathing the fresh air and admiring the stars at night, is a good day even if I don't find anything.  (And I've got you beat by a few years but I still plan to be out there when I'm 80!)

Hahahah, yes, to my eternal shame I must admit to live literally 5 minutes away from the ONLY site in The Nehterlands where one can find (a very rare I might add) trilobite species.

Still, I wouldnt mind to drive a full day just for the thrill of being able to pick up some of those ultracool Olenellus frags like you did :-)

[Sagebrush Steve]

I've been prepping some of the specimens I collected on this trip.  I did all the prep work with needle-point hand tools I picked up dirt cheap at Harbor Freight.  Here are a couple of examples:

 

This is an Itagnostus (Peronopsis) interstrictus.  You can see the "before" photo above.  It is the last photo in my original post.

 

Here is an Elrathia kingii molt that includes the partially detached cephalon.  The cephalon was entirely buried and I wasn't sure what I would uncover but it turned out pretty well.

 

Both of the above specimens were ones I prepped myself.  At the quarry, they will offer to clean up your trilobites using a motorized wire brush.  It does quick work but also noticeably abrades the specimen.  Here is an example of one they wire brushed.  Not sure how well it comes across in the photo but I would definitely recommend you not have them prep your more valuable specimens.  Otherwise I highly recommend U-dig Fossils as a nice place to collect.