Daylong collecting hike - Sacramento Mountains, New Mexico

[Kato]

It's been several years since I've last posted. Had a bit of run-in with a medical issue that took me offline for awhile. I seem to be doing better and have been able to complete a daylong ramble in the local hills albeit at 70% of my former capacity.

 

This trip is in the Sacramento Mountains and covers the hike into the Mississippian Lake Valley (MLV) Formation, specifically the Nunn Formation for collecting. The MLV is the last of the formations in the Mississippian locally. After that I ascended into the lower Pennsylvanian known as the Gobbler Formation here. 

 

The two Covid years + my own medical issue brought about a lot of negative trailhead access issues. The detours around these now restricted areas add to the hike length sometimes quite measureably.

 

 

Once into the distant hills away from humanity things look much brighter.

 

The following is a shot back into town and the White Sands National Park (thin white strip in the distance). I'm standing on the Nunn Formation of the Mississippian Lake Valley Formation. If you can't find a crinoid, horn coral or spirifer here you simply are not trying.

 

 

A couple of crinoid hash slabs picked off the ground.  There are plentiful root and stem pieces but intact calyxes are difficult to find and usually quite small (15mm).

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 17 by Kato
typo

[Kato]

For the first time I found a quite sizeable calyx. Perhaps 30-35mm at the longest dimension. It was missing a couple of plates and quite delicate. I didn't attempt extraction. I am thinking about going back with some stabilizing fluid and making the attempt though.

 

 

[Kato]

With this likely being a high energy area finding intact lengthy sections of stem can be challenging. Here's a relatively thin 10mm width section perhaps 200mm long.

 

 

The following shows numerous fragments plus a likely root piece in the middle upper portion of the photo.

 

 

I have found short sections of stem that have had widths up to 55 mm here with similar length measurements. For the first time I was able to find potentially much longer. The loose piece on the surface measured 30mm in width.

 

[Kato]

I started clearing out the area and quickly found this was going to turn into a nice assemblage of pieces.

 

 

 

There was more under the dirt and in the buried rock formation. Ultimately, I had to give up because I didn't have the skills, tools or time to extract more from the formation.  I cleaned the pieces up at home and the specimen totaled up to over 750mm in length with the widest measurement being 35mm. This was primarily what appears to be the root area and lower stem.

 

 

A 

[Kato]

A few of the poorly preserved spirifers in the area. Most are 75-125 mm overall width.

 

 

 

 

I've been trying hard but just don't seem to have the eye for finding trilobites. I did find this nice syringopora though

 

 

[Kato]

Reaching the Pennsylvanian was fairly simple by ascending this dryfall. The top formation on the left is the top of the Mississippian.

 

 

The next photo is a view of the Miss-Penn area. The lower rights is the Nunn Formation.

 

The next collecting area was on top of the ridge which involved a mad scramble up a hillside full of things bearing thorns (cacti, mesquite, etc) and a few technical climbing moves of 5.5-5.7 to breach exposed formations. Having a pack laden with specimens makes things more challenging. 

 

[Kato]

The following specimens are all in the lower Pennsylvanian Gobbler.

 

While scrambling up the hillside this likely selenite formation (or is it boxwork calcite with selenite covering it?) was exposed.

 

 

[Kato]

On top of the ridge was a nice collecting area for lower Pennsylvanian marine fossils. 

 

A couple of visually appealing phylloid algae with crinoid pieces.

 

 

 

The smaller of the two made it home with me but I'm going back for the larger one.

[Kato]

A nice sponge. Top and bottom view

 

 

[Kato]

Some bryozoa I believe

 

 

A sample of the productids in that same area

 

 

 

[Kato]

It was getting to be about 6 hours into the hike and I'd run out of food and water...with about 2.5 miles to get back to my vehicle. Time to head back...but had to stop and take a few photos of the following crazy mix hash plate.

 

In the old days we called some of those fossils pelycopods but I think they just go by 'bivalves' nowadays?

 

 

 

I can't seem to find the pic or maybe I'm just getting forgetful and didn't take a photo, but on one of the specimen pieces I found there were embedded calamite pieces.

[bockryan]

Gorgeous finds! Always jealous of the colors out West, that sponge is particularly nice and the crinoids are huge. Thanks for the trip report

[Mark Kmiecik]

Great finds and thanks for the tour. Hope you can get back to 100% soon.

[Alex S.]

Fantastic trip report and stunning photos

[Kato]

In a separate hunt covering part of this trip terrain I finally found a very tiny trilobite. My first in the area. It appears to be the pygidium only. Total length on about 6mm. They are so small and sparse in the Pennsylvanian formations I understand why I never found any.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Wrangellian]

Just found this. Great stuff! I agree with brockryan especially, and the trilobutt is a nice addition.

[Sjfriend]

Nice report on a cool trip. I'll be actually stopping at White Sands in a couple days but unfortunately only a stop and go trip. Would love to poke around. Love hash plates and always looking for new trilobite bits. Congrats on finding your first. 

[FossilDAWG]

Thanks for the tour!  The Nunn Member seems quite different in your area from what I have seen to the west in the Black Range area.  It's sad to see "no trespassing" signs popping up so often.  Back when I lived in Tucson there was a problem with land owners, who might only own a few acres, gaining exclusive use of vast areas of mountain ranges by closing off the only road in.  Sometimes they didn't even own the land, they had a grazing permit from the BLM, so legally they couldn't close the road but local law enforcement refused to do anything about it.  Lots of "sovereign citizen" types too, and you never knew what those people were likely to do if you pushed the issue.

 

Don

[Kato]

1 hour ago, Sjfriend said:

Nice report on a cool trip. I'll be actually stopping at White Sands in a couple days but unfortunately only a stop and go trip. Would love to poke around. Love hash plates and always looking for new trilobite bits. Congrats on finding your first. 

 

Too bad your trip is so quick. There's a lot to find close to town. If you visit the Space Museum There's a trail behind it. In one of the side canyons within half a mile is where I found the trilobite and numerous productids. Saturday expect to see a dust storm with strong winds out of the west lifting the gypsum Sands of White Sands National Park towards Alamogordo. If Sunday dawns clear I'll be doing my first 2 day fossil hunting / backcountry backpacking trip.

 

 

[Kato]

1 hour ago, FossilDAWG said:

Thanks for the tour!  The Nunn Member seems quite different in your area from what I have seen to the west in the Black Range area.  It's sad to see "no trespassing" signs popping up so often.  Back when I lived in Tucson there was a problem with land owners, who might only own a few acres, gaining exclusive use of vast areas of mountain ranges by closing off the only road in.  Sometimes they didn't even own the land, they had a grazing permit from the BLM, so legally they couldn't close the road but local law enforcement refused to do anything about it.  Lots of "sovereign citizen" types too, and you never knew what those people were likely to do if you pushed the issue.

 

Don

 

Thanks, Don. Hoping one day you'll be in town so I can take you fossil hunting.