Spinatrypa spinosa

Nice Spinatrypa with the spine preserves. Great find. Congratulations.

4 hours ago, Jeffrey P said:

Nice Spinatrypa with the spine preserves. Great find. Congratulations.

Thank you! I've found a hot spot for them, and I've found quite a few at this point, but getting them out of the ground with the spines is very difficult. These guys are hiding in some particularly soft and wet shale, usually by the time I've even moved the rock enough to know I have something the spines are long since gone. I have a few now with partials—fingers crossed for a complete!

I have a sledge and three foot pry bar. Can I help?  Point me where you need me!

1 minute ago, Kane said:

I have a sledge and three foot pry bar. Can I help?  Point me where you need me!

You're going to be in charge of the benches. Benches and protection, lol.

I'm wondering if by digging in a bit more, you might hit drier rock (and possibly a better chance at pulling them out with spines intact). But that specimen above is still very impressive - I don't usually see any spines intact!

That was over in the pit I was making that I told you about. I got down to the bed, but it was flooded last few times I was out. We can hit that spot up for sure! (...if it's not flooded.)

Was that the same one you were talking about that had the fewer, but larger, trilos?

And it occurs to me that we ought to have you up at Arkona sometime, too! If you dig spirifers, you can get buckets of them loose here! Perhaps I'll give some thought to creating a meet-up before the snow flies!

Nice brachiopods.

On 9/16/2016 at 1:57 PM, Kane said:

Was that the same one you were talking about that had the fewer, but larger, trilos?

Yes, indeed it was. There are monster bugs, or at least monster bug parts all over the place in there. The Eldredgeops have been measuring about 3.5 cm or more across. A complete example that size would be a real treasure.

I got down to the solid rock below and it's awesome. I can't wait to bring you over there. You can take a crack with the new prybar, there are going to be some AMAZING plates from this location, I guarantee it. Here's the surface of the hard layers I finally got to.

I just edited this photo for better contrast, and I didn't even see that gigantic bryzoan on the left in the bottom photo... Actually pretty bummed about that; it's an impressive piece! There are actually quite a few really cool things in here that I didn't see when I was there. (Hopefully it's all still there!)

That's awesome! - let's hope the weather holds out! So you're saying this tough layer is beneath the one we were working on? With just about three days to spend there, I'm feeling like a kid waiting for xmas morning.

No, no. This is the layer under where I found the Spinatrypa. It's my secret spot that I told you about. We never made our way over to it last time. It's completely untouched and I have permission to go to town on it this weekend with everyone with whatever equipment we can muster!

Sounds good! As I know we'll be there for Saturday afternoon, all day Sunday, and Monday morning, I'm hoping we'll hit that up as well as the areas with a chance for multis. The most time consuming aspect is clearing the overburden. We've booked our lodgings and are ready to go!