First Fossil Adventure of the New Year.

[SPrice]

Yesterday was my first outing of 2024 to go south into some of Utah's beautiful deserts.  There were two stops, one of collecting and the other for scouting the terrain on a canyon outcrop.

Mounds Reef in a word is fossiliferous. it is roughly a 125 square mile area of Cretaceous period sedimentary layers of the Juana Lopez formation filled with fossils. And the Morrison formation of the late Jurassic period is right next door.  Since the early morning was still frosty I did some scouting around on side roads that my Chevy would struggle with but my recently purchased Honda Element AWD, higher clearance vehicle got me where I was going easily traversing some eroded ditches and washed out portions of the dirt roads. 

 

Due to the weather I knew that the ground would be frozen and any collecting would be predominantly surface finds which was fine with me since the fossil bearing concretions which had weathered out of the cuestas were just sitting there...by the hundreds wherever one stops. These concretions were from lemon sized up to 2 meters in diameter. I was hunting the bowling ball sized which could be cracked open with a standard rock hammer or with one of two others in my kit...a 1.4kg and a 2.7kg.

 

The drive to the destination involves a mountain range crossing and the summit is 7500 feet above sea level or 2286 meters.  

 

What it looks like and what it feels like.

 

 

 

Yeah, that's kinda chilly for fossil hunting. But after the descent it warmed up to balmy 25F and by the time I headed home it was a toasty 48F. 

 

Looking southeast with the Book Cliffs in the background. 

 

 

The lichen covered rocks are always a pleasing find. These ones are easily hundreds to thousands of years old growing  less than a mm per year. These are one of the three common type - crustose lichens.

 

 

Moving along...here's the center of a weathered out and naturally split open concretion.  Some have fossils and some fill with calcite veins around something miniscule. 

 

This one reminds me of a septarian nodule like I have on my hearth from a rock shop, all polished and nice. This would probably look nice displayed after a polish job. 

 

Here's one of the gargantuan concretions still embedded in the Ferron sandstone layer. You can see the natural split across the center. When it weathers out in a few hundred years it will roll

down the hill, drop off the cliff and bust open to reveal its contents. I'm looking for the smaller low hanging fruit.  My hammer and glasses are just barely hanging on to a crevice by the pick.

 

 

 

A few miles down the well groomed BLM gravel road I stop at my destination.  Again the Book Cliffs are in the background. By now it's close to noon and warming up nicely.

I have on three layers of undergarments, fleece pants and a cashmere sweater with military camou pants and a down jacket and a beanie to top it off. Not long later I removed the fleece pants and jacket. High altitude desert climate with low humidity feels much warmer with the UV rays cooking everything. Plus the brisk hiking and hammering has warmed me up.

 

If one looks closely the frontside of these formations are mostly devoid of concretions with the exception of a few large ones. Whereas on the back side the ground is covered with them.

  

 

This large broken open concretion down in front has a stack of 3 ammonites in its center with the "knuckles" showing nicely on the top specimen. I gave an exploratory whack or two beside the fossils and realized quickly I would be admiring this only. A rock saw or jack hammer would excavate them but power tools are not allowed...only surface collecting and manuals tools like geology hammers, shovels and picks with any holes dug being refilled. 

 

 

 

 

 

Moving on the back side where the concretions are pretty much "pick how big you want to split" ...one or two whacks with the rock hammer, or get out the bigger hammer and swing hard.  My experience from last year's trips tell me that the larger sized concretions have a greater potential for larger sized bivalves and ammonites.  Anything larger than a basket ball is beyond splitting easily. So out of 25-50 on the surface there may be 10 prime concretions. I was being very picky on this trip. 

 

 

This one looked promising. 

 

 

 

 

 And it was! First hit and I see something I immediately recognize. The unique flat keel and smooth sidewalls of a Placentaceras pseudoplacnenta ammonite; from late Cretaceous period. Wooh Hoooo!

 

 

A bit more matrix removed confirmed my guess.

 

 

A few more delicate taps revealed more.

 

 

 

And then a second one appears!  Whaaaaat ?!?!?    I certainly wasn't expecting that.  The second ammonite of the same species was hidden right under the stack of bivalves in the bottom right of the above image.  Not even a clue that it was there.  It was time to stop whacking and start packing it for the trip home to do the prepping. 

 

 

Part Two ... coming soon.

 

Steve

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 29 by SPrice
typos

[Darktooth]

Great report! Looking forward to part 2!

[Bjohn170]

Wonderful pictures! Great report, I feel like I came along with you. See ya in part 2!

[SPrice]

Part Two...

 

Instead of starting a new thread, I'll just continue on this one.

 

The holdup was using my phone for the pics and Google Photos was a bit slow to update my account with the next batch of images. 

 

Well,  after all the excitement of finding two less common ammonites in the same concretion, I found a few more keepers and decided to head north to the second destination to scout an area I had marked on Google Maps but not yet explored ... a canyon in Helper, Utah.

 

From Wiki- Helper, Utah was founded as a “helper engine” town in 1881. Here trains would pick up an extra engine to help them up the steep, relentless grade of Price Canyon and over Soldier Summit. At the beginning of the 20th century, Helper was a booming railroading and coal mining community.

 

 

Some pics as I headed north out of Mounds Reef. 

 

 

You can see a few concretions in the background many of which have weathered open.

 

 

And dozens of concretions eroded out of the cuesta face having rolled down the hill. For imagining the scale of the cliff. The concretions visible are all over 1.5 meters diameter. I estimate the tumble down the hill is 50-70 feet of pain if one misstepped.

 

 

And just before leaving the Cretaceous formation zone is something completely different in the background on my left. 

 

 

 

 

This next stop in Helper was another 300 feet above the previous location of Mounds Reef near Price, Utah which was 5,600' ASL.  So the drive above town put me at 6,000 when I drove up on top of the canyon to the outcrop.  What I didn't count on was the sporadic patches of snow  up there and the sun having warmed up and turned the snow packed road into sporadic mud patches.

 

My once solid orange Element is now two toned. Top half orange, bottom half brown.  The overnight freeze and daytime thaw had lifted and loosened the top inch or two of topsoil creating a fun, mushy drive. It didn't take long to realize I would not be scouting very long and definitely not muddying up the inside of my vehicle. The patchy snow covered enough ground that I was unable to see anything besides snow, brown plants pinyon pines and juniper trees.  What I was looking for was light brown topsoil and isolated raised areas of light orange sandstone.

 

Here's a borrowed image from anther fossil hunter showing the soil colors and what the orange sandstone contains.  Hence my enthusiasm to explore this area.  I kept on the gas pedal slow and steady so as to not get stuck having never driven offroad in these conditions with my Honda. But spring will arrive soon in the southern desert and by March it will be dry. It's fairly obvious that I am looking forward to put some time in this area of BLM land. I can see 4-5 other orange soil areas in this image alone. 

 

 

Here's pics of the finds to wrap up this adventure. All will need some prepping.  The last one is a mystery. Geologic or trace fossil? Found as part of a capstone above the concretion layer. It's limestone, imo, which is why I think it could be acidic erosion patterns? Or burrows?

 

 

 

Three partial ammonites - all might be Prionocylus hyatti in both robust and gracile forms.

 

The double ammo concretion with some water brushed on for contrast. Lots of careful prepping for this one.

 

 

 

I have calendared a number of trips to the desert to coincide with the new moon phase during May, June and July to have a both fossils in the daylight and astrophotography at night. 

And will probably have a few spontaneous trips before and after the calendared events. I'm also thinking of booking a trip to Texas for a long weekend in the Dallas-Ft Worth area with a guide. 

 

 

 

Hmmmm...this kinda looks like the Morrison Formation...Is that an Allosaurus sticking out of that knoll on the left?

 

Edited January 29 by SPrice

[patelinho7]

I always enjoy your reports. Great photography! I hope you will show us the finished prep!

[Alex S.]

Fantastic report! Looks like you e got some fun prepping ahead of you. If you ever want company (or a high clearance jeep) I'm only a hop and a slip away in west valley. Can't wait to see them prepped!

[SPrice]

10 hours ago, Alex S. said:

Fantastic report! Looks like you e got some fun prepping ahead of you. If you ever want company (or a high clearance jeep) I'm only a hop and a slip away in west valley. Can't wait to see them prepped!

 Thanks, Alex!  As my profile says, I'm in Draper. But West Valley is my work commute destination.  I gotta a lotta mud to prep off my Honda Element this afternoon and then I'll gather plenty of superglue to start on those Ammos.  Next trip will be weather dependent down south ( warmer and drier ) . Could be around late February if we warm up and dry out a bit.  More likely though is more snow! We always need the moisture...but I'm from the South = AL,TX, GA, NC...you get the gist. I like the hot. I love the Utah desert dry heat!! Sad to say, my recent 2-3 years of being a desert rat have shown me a spike in desiccation among even the toughest desert flora - the cacti- which are drying out and dying. Not good.

[Alex S.]

Anytime. As much as I want to go out we need the snow. I'm from here originally and the dessication is bad, I can't go on most of my favorite backpacking trips down south due to the springs drying up. 

[Neanderthal Shaman]

Great finds!

[Shellseeker]

Thanks for taking us along,  to a place I will never see... but now I know what it looks like... beautiful

[Yoda]

@SPrice

 

Fantastic scenery and nice finds 

[SPrice]

10 hours ago, Shellseeker said:

Thanks for taking us along,  to a place I will never see... but now I know what it looks like... beautiful

 

 

If you change your mind, just book a flight and I'll take care of the rest. We do have 300 sunny days on average and gators are pretty rare here. But there are some sharks in the west desert somewhere in a SCUBA training site and tourist destination  ( Bonneville Seabase) , IIRC.

[Balance]

No idea how I missed this. 
 

Thanks for putting this together. That was a lot of effort. Appreciated. 
 

Im embarrassed that I’m most excited to learn that lichens are hundreds or thousands of years old!!! I had no idea. 
 

You’re gonna clean house in that new spot  come spring. It’s all about what happened before what happened, happened. Figuring out the “Getting to it” , understanding the area and planning the next move take the most effort. You just did that part so the rest will flow smoothly. 
 

I wanna see a pic of that element back hatch up and a spare tire size ammonite loaded in. I’ll except nothing less. 😂 

 

Jp

[SPrice]

1 hour ago, Balance said:

I wanna see a pic of that element back hatch up and a spare tire size ammonite loaded in. I’ll except nothing less. 😂 

 

Jp

Too Funny, Jp! 

 

The ammo was too big so I had to mount it on a spare tire rack.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 31 by SPrice

[Balance]

If you find a place online that does custom spare tire covers for jeeps I bet you could print one like that! 😂😂 

 

That might not be a million dollar idea but I’ll put a “,” in its value for sure!! 😉

 

Jp

[SPrice]

You mean something kinda like my beverage mug, right?  I am that guy.   I made these stickers on Friday for my trip on Saturday.

 

 

 

 

[SPrice]

Honda Elements don't have that full size spare tire rack...unless you mount a Honda CR-V spare tire rack onto the hatch or buy an aftermarket swing out style rack.  I strap a full size up top in the basket for expended off-road trips.

 

 

Not my Element.

[Balance]

We move to steering wheel covers then ! Where there’s a will!! 
 

Thanks, this was a good laugh 

 

Jp

[Andúril Flame of the West]

I've missed seeing your posts; great to see that you're back at it! The landscape out there looks so peaceful and awe-inspiring. I'll certainly have to get out and see that part of the country one day!

 

As far as your finds I am really looking forward to seeing the prep on the double-ammo specimen. I am not sure if it is simply hard to see in the photographs, but I am surprised that you managed to spot them!

[SPrice]

Well....it turns out the previously perceived "double" ammonite fossil turned out to be a single specimen of Placentaceras pseudoplacenta.  And I'm totally fine with that. In fact, I'm thrilled. During a short prepping session last night, I looked at all the angles of approach to remove more matrix as it had a big mound between what I thought were the two visible keels. Removing the mound with a pointy chisel and jewelers hammer revealed the single specimen and my lack of experience decoding the internals of a concretion.  I've got a ways to go to finish it but am pleased thus far. It has a lot of crush damage. I don't think it's called pathology when it appears the damage is post mortem. Please correct me if I'm describing it incorrectly. 

The "two keels" earlier revealed  are now the bottom left and right outer whorl edges. 

I'll post again when I'm satisfied with the prepping.  It's wet with water to contrast it from the matrix. 

Edited February 3 by SPrice
Typos