Caleb Posted July 7, 2012 Share Posted July 7, 2012 With everything that has been going on recently, I have not been able to get out collecting. Finally everything calmed down and then the heat hit, sure you southern people may laugh, but I'll take 15 degrees over 100 any day(-9 and 38 degrees for you Celsius people). Anyway, today was the first day in the past week when it's been forcasted to be below 100, so even with a 50% chance of rain I was going collecting! I decided to hit two spots that we had just recently found and had only visited once. It started off pretty slow, but ended with a fantastic bang. The first site we(my fiance and I) hit was literally a ditch. The first time I collected here with my father and we found a couple bugs and a partial negative of a very very rare Eobrontus lunatus. Somebody else had recently collected this site and we're assuming they collected the positive. My hope was to find one of these, but I didn't have that good of luck. After breaking rock for a while and not finding much I decided to call it quits and head to another location. The site A bryozoan that I thought was cool. A cephalopod that I thought required photographing but not collecting And a little rolled Anataphrus borraeus that I'm not too sure is whole We got to the next site and I imediately picked up a decent horn coral. Normally I wouldn't keep them, but it had been a slow start. When I was at this site last, my father and I had cleared and swept a section of bedding plain that looked interesting. I made my way over to it and it paid off. Visible were 3 crinoids and a partial trilobite, I'm excited to see if anything else shows up when I wash the slab. Not much longer and I looked at a pile of dirt. Sticking out of it was a very nice rolled Anataphrus borraeus. It will be the largest and one of the nicest rolled A. borraeus that is in my collection as well as my father's collection. The nice thing is that I was even able to find where the trilobite rolled out of. The last thing I found was a possible Ceraurinus marginatus... whether or not it's complete has yet to be seen. If it is complete it will be the first one that I have found. The site Crinoids on the slab my father and I brushed off on our previous visit Very nice fully inflated rolled Anataphrus borraeus and the hole from whence it came. Ceraurinus marginatus... Please be whole! Caleb Midwestpaleo.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auspex Posted July 7, 2012 Share Posted July 7, 2012 I think the practice of cleaning off an exposure so it can weather is inspired! It might be S.O.P. for you bug hunters, but fossil "farming" is not something I would have thought up myself. Then again, any site I ever hunted for bugs & etc. was public and pretty well known, so someone else would have reaped the harvest. "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimB88 Posted July 7, 2012 Share Posted July 7, 2012 (edited) wow! that was a good trip! Awesome stuff! p.s: Im also impressed that you can ID that trilo from that little bit that is showing. Edited July 8, 2012 by JimB88 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zachj Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 nice report man one day i will find a tooth over 3 inches in good conditon haha. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcolmt Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 Very nice report Caleb, you have some great sites that you visit. Neat to be able to do it with your father. My son has absolutely no interest in fossils........ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fossildude19 Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 Thank you for the field trip Caleb! I'm with Jim - do not know how you can identify a bug with so little showing! Regards, Tim - VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER VFOTM --- APRIL - 2015 __________________________________________________ "In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." John Muir ~ ~ ~ ~ ><))))( *> About Me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caleb Posted July 8, 2012 Author Share Posted July 8, 2012 Thank you for the field trip Caleb! I'm with Jim - do not know how you can identify a bug with so little showing! Regards, At first I thought it was a Flexicalymene senaria because of the glabellar lobes on the back of the cephalon but I was able to rule that out because of the thorax. The thorax is very chierurid-ish and knowing that what was showing of the cephalon didn't belong to a Ceraurus(because of the texture, it's very smooth), that left Ceraurinus. Pointing out the glabellar lobes A complete and much larger specimen in our collection Caleb Midwestpaleo.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nala Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 Nice field trip and finds,i like a lot the crinoid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caleb Posted July 8, 2012 Author Share Posted July 8, 2012 (edited) I was wrong!!! Because there are only 4 described Chierurids in the Galena formation I had ruled out all but the only one that made sence to me, Ceraurinus marginatus. This, however, was incorrect. I made a visit to my father's house today and he had done a little prep on the mystery bug and found that it is not a Ceraurinus, but a Ceraurinella!! This was very exciting to both of us as there is not a Ceraurinella described out of the Galena formation. With a little research, my father found a close match in a paper about the Kimmswick formation. The Galena formation in Southern Minnesota is very similar to the fauna of the Kimmswick of Missouri. So now we have another trilobite to add to our growing Galena Trilobite Fauna List. So, while I was wrong, I was wrong for a good reason... it wasn't supposed to be there Ceraurinella aff. tenuisculptus(I should also add: "In a recent assessment, Chatterton and Ludvigsen (1976) assigned 14 species to Ceraurinella including Ceraurinus tenuisculptus Bradley, 1930...") My father also hit the Anataphrus borraeus with the air abraisive. I'm very very pleased with the results. Edited July 9, 2012 by Caleb Caleb Midwestpaleo.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KansasFossilHunter Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 Wow, sweet! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auspex Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 New for the formation faunal list? That's fantastic; congratulations! "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fossildude19 Posted July 9, 2012 Share Posted July 9, 2012 That is amazing! Congratulations! Well done, and well spotted! Regards, Tim - VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER VFOTM --- APRIL - 2015 __________________________________________________ "In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." John Muir ~ ~ ~ ~ ><))))( *> About Me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeD Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 very nice! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caleb Posted July 10, 2012 Author Share Posted July 10, 2012 Thanks, being able to find trilobites we've never seen in over 50 combined years(>35 for my father, >15 for me) of collecting the Galena formation is very exciting. Caleb Midwestpaleo.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommabetts Posted July 17, 2012 Share Posted July 17, 2012 Loved reading about your trip, made me feel like I was there with you. Your finds are amazing, and the prep on the bug is very good. Thank you for sharing this amazing trip with us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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