Fossil Collecting trip to Little Falls, New York

[Nautiloid]

Hello everyone!

 

I have been wanting to collect the Utica Shale for a while, so yesterday I decided to go check out a pretty popular locality along a creek near the town of Little Falls. It was super hot out so I couldn’t stay for very long, but I managed to find some pretty interesting things. 

[Nautiloid]

Here are a couple of the best Triarthrus becki finds. No complete specimens, but that was expected since the site is notorious for a lack of complete bugs haha. 

 

 

This last one is a pretty decent double. One of the molts still has its librigena but it’s missing the rest of the cephalon. 

[Fossildude19]

Good finds, Owen!

[Nautiloid]

Here’s some other interesting stuff I found:

 

A pretty worn out Sphenothallus

 

This is a pretty peculiar piece. It looks to me like a large colony of pyritized sponges, although I haven’t been able to find much talking about sponges from the Utica Shale. 
 

These ones are a little harder to see, but they look to me like a pair of pyritized sponges. These two came from the same small block as the large colony.

 

I also found a bunch of weirdly shaped, smooth fossils which I’m assuming are some sort of algae. 

[Nautiloid]

Just now, Fossildude19 said:

Good finds, Owen!

Thank you!!

[Nautiloid]

I believe this coiled cephalopod is Trocholites ammonius.

 

 

 

 

I thought this was pretty peculiar so I kept it. It’s a cluster of about 20 small lingulid brachiopods. Maybe they were all swept into one area by the current, or maybe they were all attached to some sort of substrate. 

[KompsFossilsNMinerals]

Nice finds, especially for that site!

[Nautiloid]

57 minutes ago, KompsFossilsNMinerals said:

Nice finds, especially for that site!

Thank you sir! 

[Nautiloid]

I was just told that this fossil, which I had previously labeled as algal, is actually a partial phyllocarid valve! 
 

[Fossildude19]

Cropped, rotated and contrasted: