Pecos & Santa Fe, New Mexico

[erose]

So the last couple of years we have headed north to Santa Fe to beat the Texas heat. We (family and I) spent the first weekend in Pecos right on the river. I got skunked fly fishing but found some nice inverts up the road. The majority of rock I looked at was barren but then I found one really great pocket/layer about a mile N on NM63. Mostly brachs, some corals, crinoid stems and a few other bits.

The second spot was just outside Santa Fe where we went for the rest of the week. I have not had any luck around there the last two years but one afternoon while the rest of the crew were doing their stuff I checked out a spot up NM475 (AKA Artist/Hyde Park Rd.) and found a bunch of nice brachs, lotsa crinoid stems and some other odd bits. many of brachs are complete although I have yet to clean them.

My preliminary research suggests these are from either the Alamitos &/or La Pasada Formations (Pennsylvanian) The Pecos site included quite a few "Composita" type brachs as well as sprifeds. The Santa Fe site had no Compositas.

Here are some photos. If anybody can give me positive IDs I would appreciate it.

[Traviscounty]

Nice to see some stuff from our neighboring state! Combining a little fossil hunting with the family sounds like fun. I wish New Mexico was a little closer.

[erose]

Nice to see some stuff from our neighboring state! Combining a little fossil hunting with the family sounds like fun. I wish New Mexico was a little closer.

From Austin it's about 13 hours to Santa Fe. We get out at dawn and arrive with plenty of time to still enjoy the evening. We went via 183 to 84 & up thru Lubbock, Clovis, Ft Sumner and Santa Rosa. We came back via 285 thru Roswell and all the way down to I-10 and then across to 290 thru Fredericksburg. Next time we will go all the way across to I-25 and up thru Las Cruces and Alburquerque. All of those routes are supposedly within 15-30 minutes length of each other.

What was a bit scary was how much greener so much of the rest of Texas and New Mexico were compared to right here near Austin. This freaking drought is pretty local. Even west Texas looked OK compared to right here.

[gwestbrook]

On 8/8/2009 at 1:26 PM, erose said:

So the last couple of years we have headed north to Santa Fe to beat the Texas heat. We (family and I) spent the first weekend in Pecos right on the river. I got skunked fly fishing but found some nice inverts up the road. The majority of rock I looked at was barren but then I found one really great pocket/layer about a mile N on NM63. Mostly brachs, some corals, crinoid stems and a few other bits.

The second spot was just outside Santa Fe where we went for the rest of the week. I have not had any luck around there the last two years but one afternoon while the rest of the crew were doing their stuff I checked out a spot up NM475 (AKA Artist/Hyde Park Rd.) and found a bunch of nice brachs, lotsa crinoid stems and some other odd bits. many of brachs are complete although I have yet to clean them.

My preliminary research suggests these are from either the Alamitos &/or La Pasada Formations (Pennsylvanian) The Pecos site included quite a few "Composita" type brachs as well as sprifeds. The Santa Fe site had no Compositas.

Here are some photos. If anybody can give me positive IDs I would appreciate it.

Grew up spending our vacation time each summer going to the Pecos River Camp near Pecos. Used to be a fishing camp with some rudimentary cabins (no running water, wood stoves, etc). Some of the best times of my life were spent there. Loved to fly fish from a very early age along the banks of the Pecos River near the camp. Always a treat for all of us. I visited that site back in July after my dad passed away in January. Brought back a lot of memories for sure.