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Are these crinoid pinnules? My wife (the one in our family with the "fossil eye") found this on August 10 on our trip to central New York - we were looking in a very low strata (about 20 feet lower (deeper) than the Devonian "Tully limestone" strata) - this lower strata was a thick (15 foot) layer of very hard blue-grey and orange rock (lots of iron in the shale). There were very few fossils in the layer, a few shells and crinoid stems. We had given ourselves 10 more minutes and I told Nancy, "Let's try to find something really special before we go." A few minutes later she came up to me and said, "How about this?" Again, her keen fossil eye had found something unusual. These look like a really good preservation of crinoid pinnules, but I would appreciate confirmation.

TRIP REPORT - TULLY, NY Finds included Orthocone Cephalopods, Trilobites, Nautiloids, Devonian Assemblages We didn't have much time for fossil site visits this year so our 4th of July weekend had to be special. We decided to combine fossils and fishing which gave us 2 days at Tully NY for fossils, and 3 days at Lake Cayuga for boating/fishing and fossiling. This report covers the Tully site visit. I'll post a separate trip report for Lake Cayuga. As our friends on the Forum know, Nan and I try to set specific goals and targets for each fossil site visit and that's what we did for our 4th of July fossil and fishing vacation. Our goal for the Tully visit was to find Devonian fossils that were unique and collectible. We also wanted to find larger Devonian fossils if possible. I called and got permission in advance from the land owner to collect at our favorite Devonian site but when we got there, we were disappointed to find that our best spot had been picked clean and a lot of fossil rich rubble had been removed. Last year we found many large brachiopods, crinoids and several species of trilobites but this year there were no large specimens, only "baby fossils." Also, it was raining both days so we didn't do our customary cracking and fracking of shale which yields our best finds and this was a factor. I immediately found 1) a large well-worn nautiloid shaped fossil, and 2) a smaller nautiloid shaped impression in shale. These are not well articulated but I haven't seen a lot of large nautiloids from Tully. I also noticed some very large diameter cephalopod segments about 2 inches in diameter. Often we find these flattened in shale but these pieces were fully articulated cylinder shaped segments. This clue suggested we might find more complete specimens, so we started looking for more complete specimens. Nan was looking at a vertical face exposed by the construction work and suddenly started screaming that she found something cool. I ran over and sure enough, there was a large tube shaped fossil with segments and a smooth skin...standing upright exactly where it was preserved. In the first image below you can see the position of the tube in the formation and the relationship to the horizontal layers which suggests that this is NOT a concretion or geological anomaly, but a real fossil. The second image shows a closeup of the fossil in situ. Closer inspection shows a center stele at the tip of the top rounded segment which you can see in the image below. It took me about an hour to carefully extract the tube (Nan is better at finding fossils and I'm probably better at excavating them). Excited by the find, I kept excavating along the seam and soon discovered another fossil with the same shape, configuration and positioning. Later, I found another partial specimen about 300 yards away - ironically, at the same place we thought was devoid of fossils. All 3 fossils were the same relative size, shape and positioned vertically in the formation. As I excavated the fossils from the formation, I kept thinking about RomanK who has found tree and plant fossils embedded vertically and I was "channeling Roman" as I removed these finds. As it turns out, these were not orthocones, but turned out to be Devonian tree fossils (Wattieza). I started a separate thread in the Fossil ID section.

4th of July - Trip Report (sneak preview) Just got back from our 4th of July fossil-fishing trip - will do a full trip report soon but in the meantime here are a few quick pix of our trip. We went to Tully NY and found a few fossils but fairly notable - hopefully getting identified in the Fossil ID section. Nan found 2 trilos at Tully, then we went fossiling and fishing at Lake Cayuga and spent half a day collecting lots of trilobites at a company-owned site where they give permission to collect. Here's a very quick preview: The first pic shows Nan with a trilo found at our normal Tully NY site - we didn't crack shale because of the rain so we picked thru rubble and she found this. The second shot is from Lake Cayuga where we discovered a trilo near a pocket where someone had extracted a concretion. The last pic shows the Cayuga site. More pix coming and a full trip report soon...

Any interest in mounting a trip to the Lakefield Oval this weekend? I am going to be in the area and thought I might try my luck and see if I can find any trilobites. Prob going to try for Sunday morning... but open to anytime if others are interested.... Was reading the Ontario's Ordovician post started by Northern Sharks, May 29 2011 08:04 PM http://www.thefossil...__hl__lakefield and also http://www.thefossil...912#entry234912 .... and it looks promising. Anyone want to join in?