Back to Red Hill

[bockryan]

Went back to Red Hill, PA yesterday and had some success - ran into Doug who gave me another excellent museum tour at the nearby field station and showed off some newly uncovered material. Red Hill fossils come from the Duncannon Member of the Catskill Formation and are Late Devonian in age.

 

Note that it seems the permitting process has changed somewhat recently as well, as Red Hill is now back under PennDOT jurisdiction.

A permit needs to be applied for each visit via mail unfortunately, which is not particularly convenient but isn't the worst thing in the world, at least compared to a "no trespassing" sign.  

 

As others have discovered and shared, the technique is to build a "shelf" above an exposed bone layer where little fragments of bone and scales can be seen. In past visits I have either broken up fallen blocks of a conglomerate material that seems to contain abundant placoderm elements or have extracted visible teeth and fin spines from the wall. The "shelf" method seemed much more effective, especially since recent clearance of the roadcut seem to have removed any remaining pieces of that conglomerate.

 

Beautiful colors on a Hyneria tooth, unfortunately the tip was broken (not by prep I think, so that's progress)

 

A scale impression, have not ID'd yet. Good detail, broken at the top unfortunately.

 

A piece of placoderm, likely Turrisaspis elektor. Not sure what element, possibly the pelvic/pectoral plate?

 

Another good sized Hyneria tooth, again with a broken tip. This one slid down the slope, I found the impression and then was able to locate the tooth itself. Cleaned up nicely. 

 

The same tooth as the first coming out of the matrix a little bit, always nerve wracking because Red Hill material loves to just explode if you poke at it too much. I only chipped it a tiny bit on one side.

 

Same tooth showing off those colors again, pretty nice looking for a 300+ million year old tooth!

 

The exposure

 

The fossil mobile in the far distance

 

[Fossildude19]

The scale looks like Hyneria to me.  Great finds!

 

@Paul1719

[bockryan]

Just now, Fossildude19 said:

The scale looks like Hyneria to me.  Great finds!

 

Thank you! Slowly building a full fish then

[Jeffrey P]

Congratulations on your finds. Looks like Red Hill is still producing some interesting material. Thanks for sharing. 

[bockryan]

11 hours ago, Jeffrey P said:

Congratulations on your finds. Looks like Red Hill is still producing some interesting material. Thanks for sharing. 

 

It definitely is, and likely will far into the future, but it requires a lot of work now. I didn't see any promising looking "pre-made" benches so you have to dig out a lot of overburden from relatively hard rock. There were also many, many very annoying black flies this time and I seem to have brushed some poison ivy as well. Given the permit requirements I think my next trip that way will focus on some of the other roadcuts. 

[Masonk]

Looks like you had an amazing trip! 

 

Hope to eventually make it out that way. Thanks for info on how to access. I was just speaking with another collector who thought you could access the site without a permit. Would have been a long trip for nothing!

 

That tooth is quite the specimen. Are they fairly common to find? 

[bockryan]

41 minutes ago, Masonk said:

Looks like you had an amazing trip! 

 

Hope to eventually make it out that way. Thanks for info on how to access. I was just speaking with another collector who thought you could access the site without a permit. Would have been a long trip for nothing!

 

That tooth is quite the specimen. Are they fairly common to find? 

 

They are reasonably common, but only in specific layers and lenses that take some time to find. They are also extremely prone to falling apart into little sections, so bring some sort of glue if you do visit. They get a lot bigger than these, so there's potential to find really impressive ones - hopefully someday!

[bockryan]

Actually the placoderm piece seems likely to be the median dorsal of Groenlandaspis pennsylvanica, based on this figure from "Groenlandaspidid placoderm fishes from the Late Devonian of North America." Does that look correct? 

 

Paper is here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/213770348_Groenlandaspidid_placoderm_fishes_from_the_Late_Devonian_of_North_America

 

 

Edited May 21 by bockryan

[Paul1719]

Hi Ryan,

I think your assessment of the placoderm plate is spot on! That's a real beauty! 

 

As far as the permitting, my understanding was that they won't bother you if you are just using hand tools? The forestry guy was pretty obsessed with power tools which is full of irony as some days I was there, I must have seen a hundred off road vehicles go by heading for some state forestry land to insure there's plenty of future erosion….

[patelinho7]

I am just seeing this report, thank you for the detailed background and description! I’ve heard many people mention Red Hill recently, and I’d never heard of it, so I’m glad to read this report. Such a cool assemblage of vertebrate material from the Devonian. Didn’t know there was such a rich deposit of it somewhat nearby to me. The colors are also very pretty, I love bone material in red matrix, the white/blue tinge mixed with the red iron enriched stain is quite a spectacle.

[NickG]

On 5/20/2024 at 6:02 PM, bockryan said:

Went back to Red Hill, PA yesterday and had some success - ran into Doug who gave me another excellent museum tour at the nearby field station and showed off some newly uncovered material. Red Hill fossils come from the Duncannon Member of the Catskill Formation and are Late Devonian in age. Note that it seems the permitting process has changed somewhat recently as well, as Red Hill is now back under PennDOT jurisdiction. A permit needs to be applied for each visit via mail unfortunately, which is not particularly convenient but isn't the worst thing in the world, at least compared to a "no trespassing" sign.  

 

As others have discovered and shared, the technique is to build a "shelf" above an exposed bone layer where little fragments of bone and scales can be seen. In past visits I have either broken up fallen blocks of a conglomerate material that seems to contain abundant placoderm elements or have extracted visible teeth and fin spines from the wall. The "shelf" method seemed much more effective, especially since recent clearance of the roadcut seem to have removed any remaining pieces of that conglomerate.

 

Makes sense. Too many bad actors messing things up out there, this at least lets them keep some tabs about who/when was at the site. When I stopped by last August, the fallen blocks were where I found my Hyneria tooth.

 

 

On 5/20/2024 at 6:02 PM, bockryan said:

A scale impression, have not ID'd yet. Good detail, broken at the top unfortunately.

 

This is an excellent lateral osteichthyan scale, with the textbook 'peg-and-socket' articulation. A real keeper and a great demonstration piece.

[bockryan]

8 hours ago, Paul1719 said:

Hi Ryan,

I think your assessment of the placoderm plate is spot on! That's a real beauty! 

 

As far as the permitting, my understanding was that they won't bother you if you are just using hand tools? The forestry guy was pretty obsessed with power tools which is full of irony as some days I was there, I must have seen a hundred off road vehicles go by heading for some state forestry land to insure there's plenty of future erosion….

 

Thanks Paul! Glad that makes sense, that means I have fairly nice pieces from both of the commonly found placoderms at the site.  Re hand tools, Doug's opinion was that even surface collecting required a waiver/permit, but I think it's pretty unlikely that you'd be bothered by PennDOT. I will focus on the adjacent sites next time as I haven't tried most of them and could use examples of some of the other fauna, although Red Hill will always be best I suspect.

[bockryan]

6 hours ago, NickG said:

 

Makes sense. Too many bad actors messing things up out there, this at least lets them keep some tabs about who/when was at the site. When I stopped by last August, the fallen blocks were where I found my Hyneria tooth.

 

 

 

This is an excellent lateral osteichthyan scale, with the textbook 'peg-and-socket' articulation. A real keeper and a great demonstration piece.

 

Thanks Nick! I have a few different looking ones that have come out nicely-ish as well, I'll post them here shortly once I get home. 

[bockryan]

7 hours ago, patelinho7 said:

I am just seeing this report, thank you for the detailed background and description! I’ve heard many people mention Red Hill recently, and I’d never heard of it, so I’m glad to read this report. Such a cool assemblage of vertebrate material from the Devonian. Didn’t know there was such a rich deposit of it somewhat nearby to me. The colors are also very pretty, I love bone material in red matrix, the white/blue tinge mixed with the red iron enriched stain is quite a spectacle.

 

The colors, for my money, are second to none! It is a fabulously pretty site, the price we pay is that the red dust makes a real mess haha. I look like I'm coming back from Mars

[NickG]

15 hours ago, bockryan said:

 

The colors, for my money, are second to none! It is a fabulously pretty site, the price we pay is that the red dust makes a real mess haha. I look like I'm coming back from Mars

Most of the Catskill Delta and Hampshire are like that!