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Haven't posted any trips in a while, although I've been on quite a few in the last while. This trip occurred this morning, about 15 minutes' walk from my backyard. It started with low expectations and ended in high reward.

 

There was an area I've been returning to for the last six years that I've pretty much tapped out. During that span, it has been generous to me, although it is now transitioning into forest. I decided to take a resigned poke at an area next door to it where a new housing development has been in progress for the last year, and like a lot of these new tracts there is a permanent adjoining drainage area that are sometimes spruced up into walking trails and ponds. It was in this area that they also trucked in a substantive amount of limestone, which I'll reasonably assume is Dundee Formation as that would be the cheapest to acquire. Or, it may be Lucas Fm from nearby Ingersoll. 

 

Poking around the brutally hard grey limestone riddled with corals, I figured it would be more of the same old, same old of the Dundee. I'm not a coral person, but I did find these ones neat. Some of these were bigger than basketballs. There were at least seven distinct types of coral I encountered. Here's a tiny sample of the ones I snapped pictures of: 

 

 

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Among the grey rock there were sandier, brown rocks that weathered into jagged layers filled with an incredible amount of biodiversity. Some layers were filled with inarticulate brachs, some with just muddy worm burrows, others chock full of fenestellate bryozoans, others with all sorts of corals, and then some others with a high profusion of rostroconches:

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The real trip-maker, and game-changer, for me was finding this potentially complete Pseudodechenella (will have to determine species... @piranha would likely get it in one). When I found it, I was in a bit of shock and probably stared at it for a good few minutes. Partials started appearing as well.

 

It means I have a new spot within walking distance again. There is a substantial amount of rock to go through, much of it quite fossiliferous. There is the small chance that I may find some spectacular trilobites in this stuff (again, assuming Dundee or Lucas Fms). With prudent site management, this area should be productive for at least a couple of years. :) 

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Thanks, Malcolm. :) And this was just a one hour prospect / recon. 

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So awesome that you would find a trilobite so close to home...a little jealous, especially since I haven't actually found one yet!!! Great stuff...

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That is a fantastic find!!  The lithology and fauna makes me confident that the sandier brown facies is the Anderdon (if I recall the name correctly).  At Ingersoll this facies overlies the Lucas.  It can"t be used for cement so it used to be stripped and discarded.  It isn"t surprising that it would be used for fill.

 

Don

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It pays to check into old potential sites which (it seems) can offer new surprises. How nice to have someplace new to explore within walking distance. :fistbump:

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

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Thanks, everyone... I'm quite excited about the prospects once I get to spend more time there. :hammer01:

 

@FossilDAWG -- Thanks, Don! I had a suspicion this material was Anderdon Mbr. I was reading a thesis a few months back where Stumm had incorrectly equated it to a very similar facies in Ohio. Now to see if there is a faunal list. :look:

 

Birchard et al (2004): "Anderdon Member: alternating zones of light-tan to brown, medium- to thick-bedded, sparsely fossiliferous, micritic limestone and thick or massive beds of rudaceous, very fossiliferous skeletal limestone. Megafauna include varied low diversity stromatoporoid sponge assemblage involving diagnostic dendroid or digitate amphiporids Amphipora nattressi and low domical to laminar forms of Anostylostroma and Syringostroma; the rugose corals Eridophyllum and Zaphrentis; tabulate coral Hexagonaria; brachiopods Paraspirifer and Brevispirifer; bryozoans; bivalves; trilobites, gastropods and the rare rostroconch Conocardium (Best 1953; Linsley 1968; Fagerstrom 1982; Prosh and Stearn 1993; Klapper and Oliver 1995)."

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Very nice Kane! It’s crazy to think you found that in what is essentially fill rock. It’s on the low end of the spectrum for the rock company, but high end for us fossil collectors. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure!  :thumbsu:

The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.  -Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don't. -Bill Nye (The Science Guy)

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Wow, I wish people would use fossiliferous rock for fill in my neighborhood. (Lee Creek Mine, if you are listening I got a spot you can dump all your spoil piles) 

 

How big is that bug?

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11 minutes ago, Scylla said:

Wow, I wish people would use fossiliferous rock for fill in my neighborhood. (Lee Creek Mine, if you are listening I got a spot you can dump all your spoil piles) 

 

How big is that bug?

I’ll use my secret connections to hook you up. :P 

 

The bug is about 3 cm (a bit more than 1”). No sense me waiting... I’m going back tomorrow!

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WOW, Kane - that's a beautiful trilobite!!!  Congrats on the amazing find yesterday, and good luck in your search for more today!!!

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:default_faint: I was about to ask how old the deposit was, then I saw that Trilobite........

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Another recon today to test out the different rock types. I discovered there was a whole other arm of the reservoir area tucked away that now increases the amount of rock to go through. Some of the rock is excessively dense, so part of my goal today was to break some of them down to allow for some weathering.

 

Some of these rocks are blank, and others are ridiculously fossiliferous. On to some pics.  

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Although a few more Pseudoechenella sp. pygidia were being found, Crassiproetus was emerging among the more bryozoanal rock. Also pictured here are some crystals within a coral, and a gastropod steinkern.

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And here's a plate of gastro steinkerns. A bit tough to make out. Also, this pretty neat branching beauty (the chisel is a 1" wide tip).

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The number of pydigia were getting ridiculous in some layers. Also pictured is a mole hill of a bryozoan colony, two rostroconch pieces, and a brach.

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And finally, in the "what the heck is this?" category. I'm reasonably certain this is a trilobite pygidium fragment, but a preliminary dig into my literature is not telling me which one. Possibly Acanthopyge?

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