Excellent Echinoderm Excursion

[Caleb]

After finding an Oklahomacystis early last month, my father and I decided to return to the site to see if we could find any more parts of the undocumented echinoderm. While we normally are out hunting for trilobites, this time I was looking for echinoderms. We arrived at the quarry around 9am and as I set down my bag I found a beat up crinoid. While we didn't collect it, it was a good sign that this would be a good day.

I started off collecting the Platteville formation in the bottom of the quarry. Crawling over the giant blocks of limestone was a bit fun, but every once in a while I would misstep into a pile of raccoon excrement... such is the consequence of collecting in a quarry. The first thing I found was what I thought may be a cyclocystites, but it just turned out to be my imagination running wild while looking at the back end of a horn coral... oh well. Shortly after wasting time on that coral I found a real Cystoid! This is the first cystoid I have found out of the Platteville Formation, so it was very exciting... and big! Because of the fragile and rare nature of this specimen, I didn't even try to field trim it. I carried it out on a large slab right away to be stabilized and carefully trimmed with a saw.

Continuing on I managed to make my way back to the slab that I found the Oklahomacystis on. I decided to check it out again out of curiosity and boy was I glad I did. Right above where we had collected the first Oklahomacystis was another one! I'm not confident that this one is as complete as the first is, but it was still exciting. It must have been covered with a flake that became loose while we collected the first one and then got washed off.

After 4 hours of crawling the giant blocks and looking over every inch of each one that looked interesting I decided to crawl the floor of the quarry. Much of the quarry floor was covered with gravel, but there were a few spots that were exposed bedrock. The first thing I came to was a ventral Gabriceraurus. Unfortunately there was a fracture going right though him and much of his body was gone. It would have been difficult to collect him without doing more damage, so I just collected him with my camera. A short distance away I found a partial Cybelodes cimelia, while it may only be part of the thorax, it is the most complete one I have found.

And a photo summery of some of the stuff we found:

Amphilichas sp. cephalon - Decorah Fm.

Cybeloides cimelia

Cystoid

Dolichoharpes reticulata shield

Gabriceraurus mifflinensis

Gabriceraurus dentatus - Decorah Fm.

Okalahomacystis

1-2-

Porocrinus sp.

And me standing next to the big slab the Oklahomacystis came out of.

[Malcolmt]

You are having a great year already.....

[squalicorax]

Nice work Caleb. You have developed quite the eye for Echinoderms. A switch in collecting priorities?

[Caleb]

You are having a great year already.....

This season has started off remarkable!

Nice work Caleb. You have developed quite the eye for Echinoderms. A switch in collecting priorities?

Just for the day, next week I'll be back to bugs.

[Shamalama]

Man o man you have a nice quarry to hunt in there. Congrats on the awesome finds!

[Ludwigia]

Hi Caleb,

Nice to see you and more of your recent finds in living color. Perseverance almost always pays off, doesn't it?