Winter trip from Fl to Michigan and Maine,

[dalmayshun]

My children have been begging us to spend a couple of holidays with them, so this year we drove from Fl to Michigan for Thanksgiving, and then over to Maine for Christmas. It was way colder than we are used to...so, LOL, last trip to Maine in winter. I had planned to stop in Mich near Alpena to fossil hunt but it was too cold. I did stop at familiar places on the way up/ The Conasuaga river bluff of mudstone, which I am still cracking, but have including one nice image from it. And then I stopped along the road cut north of St Leon, Indiania, and found my first rolled trilobite, a little flex...but also a rolled isotolus, however with a crushed face. I posted those previously, I was so excited. After Michigan, on the way to Maine, I stopped at the La Farge Quarry piles near Paulding. I only stayed briefly there, as it was late in the day, however the next morning my good wife suggested I go back for a couple of hours while she slowly got ready to travel. I jumped at the chance, even though it was only 34 degrees and raining...I thought, "Hey, I'll get there and the fossil gods will stop the rain for me" . True. I got there, chipped out a couple of things...all the shale and rock is quite hard, so I generally only had big chunks of stone. I was taking my changes. I kept looking for trilobites as I know they are common, but not easily found here. At any rate, no trilobites. Once I got back to Florida and started looking over my loot with my 10 x loop, I discovered a couple of trilobite eyes..I have been slowly cleaning them with a pin, but so far it seems like they are either singular, broken off eye pieces, or at best a cephalon, with no complete body. The larger one I posted is so interesting, because the lenses on the top of the eye are missing...there are just round little holes filled, or not with clay. However on the bottom of the eye, the lenses are in place... they even show up glassy looking under my loop. I could look at them for hours. 

   I also found some interesting brachipods in Paulding, I am including images of those, in case anyone can help me i.d. them. They are shaped somewhat like eggs...with a fold about a third of the way in from each edge, and quite deep. I thought the first one I found must have been more circular and had probably been forced into its current shape by nature, however when I found a second one like the first, I began to question that theory. Any help would be great.I may end up posting them in the ID help area as well. Overall it was a great trip, I have much to clean, and am so thoroughly glad I can now sit outside in nice warm temperatures to do it....hey, even 65 degrees is better than the 22 below we endured in Maine. 

[dalmayshun]

This is just a follow up note from my trip entry, since I mentioned I would post a conasauga shale image, and then ran out of room. So here it is Since I forgot to include a ruler, it is about the size of a dime. 

[jpc]

Nice report.  As a native northerner, I do chuckle at least a little bit when southerners come north for the holidays and are surprised that it is cold.  Ok, I am mostly giving you a hard time... minus 22 in Maine is indeed Very Cold.  It is actually a lot colder than minus 22 out here in Wyoming.  

 

Where is the Conasuaga river bluff?

[dalmayshun]

north of Atlanta, near Dalton George, It is so very cool...mudstone wall  maybe 20 feet high, running about 50 feet along the river under a bridge...so access is simply walking down along the bridge overpass. 

[Nimravis]

27 minutes ago, jpc said:

Nice report.  As a native northerner, I do chuckle at least a little bit when southerners come north for the holidays and are surprised that it is cold.  Ok, I am mostly giving you a hard time... minus 22 in Maine is indeed Very Cold.  It is actually a lot colder than minus 22 out here in Wyoming.  

 

Where is the Conasuaga river bluff?

JP, the trilobites that I sent you a while back came from that exact location.

[dalmayshun]

Nimravis, you have me confused with someone else...I am not JP. For some reason, others have confused me with him/her as well. Must be something in my name. That being said, whomever you sent trilobites to , from that location is fortunate. The mudstone is abundant and really easy to split. Thought I have noticed, some of the stone I picked up without splitting while sitting on the bank, (saving it for later) has dried and is harder to split. I am thinking about soaking it a bit in water...since you are familiar with it, do you think that would help? 

[jpc]

49 minutes ago, Nimravis said:

JP, the trilobites that I sent you a while back came from that exact location.

I suspected so...

 

dalmayshun... you have me confused with you... : )

 

[Nimravis]

1 hour ago, dalmayshun said:

Nimravis, you have me confused with someone else...I am not JP. For some reason, others have confused me with him/her as well. Must be something in my name. That being said, whomever you sent trilobites to , from that location is fortunate. The mudstone is abundant and really easy to split. Thought I have noticed, some of the stone I picked up without splitting while sitting on the bank, (saving it for later) has dried and is harder to split. I am thinking about soaking it a bit in water...since you are familiar with it, do you think that would help? 

Yes- @MarcoSr did it with some matrix I sent him. I still use a hammer first and then soak it to reveal others that were missed.

[goatinformationist]

Wow.   You are so lucky that trilobite was keeping his eyes out for you. Hehehe!

[Plantguy]

Nice bug finds! 

 

Regards, Chris 

[ynot]

sounds like a good trip, even if it was a little chilly.

[dalmayshun]

Adding a couple of images from Paulding...a very large brachiapod, both top and bottom, but unfortunately broken...however it is neat to be able to look at the edge and see how little room there was inside for creature...not much more than a gut and a set of filters i guess. The other brachiapod is from the same area. I was excited to find it. Im quite sure it is a Syringothyris texta...though a bit deformed. It was the best of three I found. Both are large...guess as they moved through time from ordovician to devonian, they grew larger....just like me, when I was married I weighed 129 # , though I am 6 feet tall, i was skin and bones...now I am a meaty  215. LOL. 

[crinus]

Your first brachiopod is Megastrophia   The one you are calling Syringothris is probably Mediospirifer.