Major blunder, Rochester Shale

[Rock-Guy-17]

Here is a story about my worst collecting blunder yet. This happened about a month ago at this point, I am still embarrassed by this story but I thought it would be worth sharing for a few reasons. As many can agree, one of the biggest struggles in this hobby is the amount of space these fossils can take up. I live in a smaller apartment and the way I make this work is by trimming some of these fossils with a wet-saw. This has worked very well for me for years and does a better job keeping the fossils safe rather than the force of striking with a hammer and chisel. If I find something really remarkable, I don't risk breaking it in the field and I take it home to cut with the saw. I was cutting a disarticulated Trimerus sp trilobite from a boulder that I found in the Rochester Shale this winter, field picture here: 

  

I found these pieces separated like this and thought that this disarticulated cephalon went to this body. Cool find, my first Trimerus partials.

 

 

But just in case there was some more fossil under that matrix I gave it some clearance until I buy some prep equipment. I cut the rock in two places to section out the thorax. Assuming that the cephalon above was associated with the body was my first mistake. My second mistake was not saving this rock until I had a chance to prep it. 

 

Since the remaining rock was a good sized chunk I decided to check for some Rochester Shale fossils

 

 

A few hits with my hammer on the side of the shale revealed this....

 

Another Trimerus head sliced cleanly by the saw, just over 2 inches long (the size of my largest trilobite). Terrific. If there is any bright side to this, I think the cephalon is cut along the border where it would connect with the thorax. The picture above doesn't show it well, but the fossil is folded under the surface. It looks like this is where the second eye might be (about where my ring and pinky finger are pointing). At first I thought I sliced it in half, but now I am not sure.

 

Here is everything puzzled back together as well as I could. Either way, a big lesson learned here. I am still interested to see how these connect with each other, or if there is any more in this matrix. Have to get some prepping tools now. 

[Sjfriend]

I know this pain. Found an interesting leaf set (only one of this type out of over a thousand found) destined for the University student im helping but it was on a bigger slab. So I cut it to reduce the size. Then I split the rest of the slab. Well guess what..... I cut through a better example of the same leaf!!!! Ugh 

[Wrangellian]

Ouch!