A So-So Trip

[Kane]

Over a week ago I took advantage of our university's Reading Week break to hop a train east to do some late season digging. Apart from a few surprise finds, it did not quite live up to my expectations. I had to hastily organize it as I had got the dates wrong, assuming Reading Week was the following week (one of my students corrected me). It meant getting the trains and motel all lined up with barely a day to spare.

 

Upon my arrival in Toronto for a layover, someone not all together upstairs thought it would be a wise idea to pick a fight with me. I defused the situation, but it certainly help set the tone for this week-long adventure. 

 

On the first day of the dig, I ended up walking about 25km for nothing. On the next day I went back to the spot that had been so productive weeks before, but this time it turned out to be the opposite with two exceptions. Unlike last time when cheirurids were popping out like they were going out of style, not even more than a pygidial spine of one this time. Instead, a pair of crappy Flexis:

[Kane]

One highlight was this Bumastoides roller I extracted from a bloc. A very nice and complete example... that has now gone missing. I suspect it may be somewhere at my friend's house.

 

 

The real highlight of the day, and likely of the trip was this:

 

 

Although incomplete, ventral, and weathered, this is a screamingly rare harpetid, Hibbertia ottawaensis. There is the possibility for it to be flipped and prepared, but my good friend who is a prep master declined my request, so it may be I will have to pray to the patron saint of lost preparation causes and try it out myself. I should mention that shortly after I found this, I contacted our trilobite expert, Scott, to confirm my suspicions as I was in utter disbelief.  

[Kane]

By the end of the weekend, I was on the train again to go farther east to Quebec City. With my luck this time around, the scene was wintry. My friend and I had planned to visit a new spot he had found along one of the many river valleys out that way, but it was more contingent on there being none of that white stuff around. So, we thought to wait it out at his place. We got some beer...

 

...and three days later we were on our way for a half day dig.

 

[Kane]

Although we struck out in finding anything complete, these Triarthrus are fairly atypical of others in the region. These appear in a halfway shale/limestone matrix and can be occasionally fairly 3D. The size of the glabella on some of the specimens was surprising, but these are interestingly box-like in appearance. We ruled out T. beckii on account of there being no axial nodes (two of them pictured here do, and are likely T. beckii), yet they do not quite fit the bill for T. eatoni either. In the mix were plenty of large Isotelus parts, but there was no point in us taking those.

 

So although the finds were fairly meagre, and days were lost to circumstances, there was some good fun with my friend and a bit of adventuring. 

[Jeffrey P]

Kane. Your so-so trips are better than some peoples' best highlights. Great trilobite finds. Hope you can recover that Bumastoides and that Hibbertia looks supercool. Big congrats and thanks for sharing.