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Finding Green River Fish at American Fossil Quarry


Sagebrush Steve

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My wife and I just got back from a week’s driving tour through Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming.  We stopped in at American Fossil Quarry outside of Kemmerer, Wyoming, for a few hours to dig for Green River fish.  It was a productive day, and we both bagged some nice finds.  Seth, the owner of the quarry and a TFF member, wasn’t there that day, but his assistant, Nick, was very helpful in getting us started.  I brought a bag full of tools which were mostly unnecessary.  As Nick pointed out, all you really need is a brick hammer and a thin chisel, both of which they provide.  I noted that since this was the end of the season and the chisels had undoubtedly seen hard use all summer, they had pretty blunt tips.  I had brought my own set from Geo-Tools (http://www.geo-tools.com/fossil-rock-chisels/custom-thin-rock-splitting-chisels) and found the 1/16-inch chisel with a single bevel was particularly useful.  My wife used the chisel they supplied and was quite successful.

 

The floor of the quarry was covered with a fine powder of shale.  We worked for 3 hours before the wind picked up and started blowing the powder around so much we decided to call it a day.  Nick loaded our fossils onto a cart and took me over to a line of saws that can be used to get rid of the excess matrix and trim the specimens down to a reasonable size.  After a quick tutorial I was happily working on my own trimming down all my specimens.  I noted the saw was a Chicago Electric 10”, 2.5 HP tile saw like they sell at Harbor Freight: https://www.harborfreight.com/10-in-25-hp-tilebrick-saw-69275.html.  But the blade was definitely much better than you can get at Harbor Freight.  It was a 10” blade designed for dry cutting without the need for water.  I was very impressed with the saw and wouldn’t hesitate to buy one from HF if I had enough need for it.  But I’d look elsewhere for a top-quality blade.

 

About 10 years ago we had visited the Warfield quarry across the road, and they had us digging right up against the rock wall where you could either split loose shale or extract your own shale right from the wall (which was a bit of a chore even at my then-younger age).  At American Fossil Quarry, they extract the shale for you with a giant excavator and lay it out in rows of piles for you to access.  Probably a lot safer than being right up against a crumbly rock wall.  You don’t get the chance to record exact location and orientation of the fossils in-situ, but unless you are a professional paleontologist you won’t care.  As Nick said, this is a commercial quarry, not a scientific expedition.  The fun is in finding the fossils, of which we found plenty, even in the space of only 3 hours.

 

I’d strongly encourage anyone to stop in at this quarry.  The dirt road is reasonable for the family car right up to the descent at the quarry entrance.   It’s then a bit of an adventure if you don’t have 4WD (which we fortunately did), but at the bottom there were even large travel trailers that had made it down safely.  Be sure to mention that you are a member of The Fossil Forum and they will give you a 10% discount.

 

Here are some photos of a few of our finds.  My ID’s on them are tentative, so if anyone has any corrections, please let me know.

Full collection after trimming:

Overview.jpg.d3c218ae637426de94302d20384cf5e5.jpg

 

Mioplosus labracoides:

Mioplosus.thumb.jpg.68d3db64aeb4864044ee5c5d762e40be.jpg

Diplomystus dentatus:

Diplomystus.thumb.jpg.f27d5e21cf1ef1cd55c96883a2308a5d.jpg

Small Diplomystus:

5b9f25e60888c_Diplomystus3.thumb.jpg.7dfeb1d5a06d7892056379554fbcfe3d.jpg

Diplomystus needing more prep:

5b9f2669e4a1c_Diplomystus2.thumb.jpg.2fcdffd87eccdf85e1b5c22f09891cd4.jpg

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I believe the large one is a Knightia alta, given the size of it's belly.  Small one could be Knightia eocaena:

5b9f26fb7627e_KnightiaAlta1.thumb.jpg.132821dfb75258ce76bda2e7a801bbaa.jpg

 

This one is for @GeschWhat5b9f2738a7c95_Coprolite1.thumb.jpg.cfa5eeb6fcbfcd2f73c2008f61f429fa.jpg

 

These are just a sampling of what we collected.  Plenty of prep work left to do, which will keep me busy for awhile.

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Excellent report and finds,  Steve. :) 

Your ID's look good to me. 

Thanks for posting. 

 

    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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A very interesting and informative report, Steve. :)

Nice finds, too. 

Decent fish and Lori will adore the coprolite! (so do I) 

Life's Good!

Tortoise Friend.

MOTM.png.61350469b02f439fd4d5d77c2c69da85.png.a47e14d65deb3f8b242019b3a81d8160-1.png.60b8b8c07f6fa194511f8b7cfb7cc190.png

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Wow!!! Very nice story and your finds look great. We just got back from our trip and are choice was Fossil Safari right next to your site. 

We had a great trip but had to cut it short because our daughter is a real city slicker and they are not into the getting dirty part. But they did join in as they saw what I was exposing. The Fossil Safari did have quality pieces put in rows to go through but I prefer digging in the actual layers.  I was very grateful for what we found and able to smell the oil in the soil and come away with some quality pieces. We are going to go back in March or April and do it all again. While we were there they had discovered a three toed horse they were working on above the area we were at. Exciting.

 

I posted our pictures and here was one surprise we came across while prepping our 13”  Phareodus Encaustus. 

 

Thanks again for sharing. 

49972075-1D46-4CA6-BD4C-AD376A9F835B.jpeg

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