Shamalama Summer Vacation Day 2

[Shamalama]

Vacation Day two, Monday 31st of August

I got up early to drive up to Kemmerer and spent the whole day at Warfield’s fish quarry trying to catch a whopper with just my hammer and chisel as bait. My only company was George, who was running the quarry that day, a couple from California named Amanda and Larry, and a twelve year old boy named Conner who was dropped off by his father. We all attacked the wall of the quarry where George said we could dig but none of us were finding very much. Poor Connor was bored to tears after about a hour or so. He told me he liked buying fossils (he’s from NYC) but they are so expensive so he thought he could find them himself. I asked how long he’d been collecting and he replied “a couple of months”. I repressed the urge to sigh loudly and instead tried to encourage the young lad. Sadly he is at the stage where he doesn’t understand what goes into fossil collecting. He just wanted to find a big fish and was disappointed by all the fossil poop he found (it is quite common). I can understand where he was coming from, trying something new is tough and doesn’t always match your expectations. Conner kept moving around the quarry to different spots hoping to find something and George tried to teach him how to look for the fish and that you had to stay in one spot and be persistent. Amanda tried to take him under her wing as she is a grandmother but Conner proved to be a little frustrating even for her as he kept wanting to move around in the area she was working in and she was trying to get large slabs moved. Lucky for us all his dad picked him up four hours after dropping him off and they went on their merry way. During the time that Conner was there I got to meet with our own “Old Dead Things”, aka Jim, and talk with him a bit. Jim spends six weeks at the quarry as a share digger. That means that he splits everything he finds with the Quarry 50/50. His goal was to fill up a pallet or two so that he had some to take back to his shop but seemed to be having about as much luck as the rest of us in the quarry. He took some time out to tell me a little about the different layers in the quarry and where you would find the fish. It’s fascinating to learn that these diggers have the quarry figured out and shoot for specific layers. Jim then showed me some of the slabs he’d found so far and a few of the other diggers slabs. Jim had some cool mass mortality plates from a layer called “the puddles” and I saw another digger who’d pulled a huge Phareodus out but it was missing it’s head. Jim told me that they still save those pieces as they might find a head to match it one day and create a sort of frankenfish during the prep process so that the average person would never know. He then showed me some of the rare finds made this summer at the quarry including some Stingrays, some large rare fish and a possible Gator claw. After the quarry talk Jim pulled out some Dinosaur bone that he’s been collecting and the long and patient process it took to get permission to collect on the private ranch. He then very generously gave me a bag with pieces of Dino bone! I don’t have any real dino bone in my collection (aside from the token, thumbnail sized piece that I bought at a gift shop and a slab through a vertebrae) and while these pieces are not identifiable to species or bone type, they will have a special place in my collection. I gave Conner one of the pieces from the bag as I knew he’d get a kick out of it. Jim had to go off and help a fellow digger with some stuff at the 18” layer quarry so we said our goodbyes and I headed back to digging. I told Larry and Amanda some of the layer info I’d learned from Jim and George heard me talking about the Tri-ash layer. This is a specific layer of three ash falls from a mega eruption that was 180’ deep and compressed down to about three inches. I’m sure Jim will chime in if I get any details wrong here. Apparently between that layer and another ash fall about 18” above it is a relative dead zone with few to no fish being found. This is right in the section we are working in and explains why we hadn’t found many fish yet! So Larry and I were working next to each other and decided to move down to some rock that was below the tri-ash. Amanda was working well above it looking for big fish which are found higher in the quarry. Well Larry and I started to hit more fish and George then remarked that the layers we were now in were called the “Pay Layers” due to the abundance of fish. It’s better to understand the stratigraphy of an area BEFORE you go into collecting it but sometimes it doesn’t make that much of a difference. This is definitely a case of needing to know the stratigraphy to maximize your time and energy in collecting fish. Anyway I got about eight decent whole fish and broke another half dozen trying to field trim but that’s all part of the collecting experience! Sorry for the lack of pictures but I completely forgot to take any while in the quarry! Below are some pics of my favorite finds: a nice large Diplomystus (broke the head on the left side during shipping, darn it all!), A snail and the Dino bone that Jim gave me.

From the quarry I headed to Bob’s Rock Shop in downtown Kemmerer. Bob’s is an old shop that has probably been there for decades. He’s an older gentleman now but still sharp as a tack with recognizing all the self collected local petrified wood that he has all around his shop. In fact he has a 10’ long, 3' diameter log of petrified wood in front of his shop that he found in Eden valley. I like to stop off and spend lots of money at his shop because he has the best material from Kemmerer and Eden valley and his prices can’t be beat! This year I bought a 24” long, 2.5” diameter branch of Blue Forest wood (very rare to get that long of a piece), some petrified Beech wood from the Eden Valley (great patterns!) and a couple of slabs of other various woods that he’d collected, cut and polished himself. I’d tell you the total price but then I’d be bragging. Kemmerer is such a small town that I ran into Conner with his parents as well as Larry and Amanda again at the shop. Conner just wanted a nice piece of petrified wood (cheaper than NYC!) and Larry was talking to Bob about buying some wood wholesale.

Petrified branch and cross section

Another small branch from the Eden Valley with a knot and bit 'o branch on the side.

A nice cut and polished round of "Pepperwood" from the Blue Forest. Note the blue agate/chalcedony around the exterior of the round which is why the petrified wood from that area is called the "Blue Forest" Bob said the white spots in the wood are beetle tunnels.

A sample of the Beech wood (might could be Sycamore) from Eden Valley, check out the zigzag pattern!

I left Bob’s very satisfied and headed towards Evanston where my hotel was for the night but made one last stop along the way. There is an area south of Kemmerer called “Oyster Hill” due to the fact that a section of the Cretaceous aged Oyster Hill sandstone member of the Frontier formation crops out and is full of, what else, oysters. I had no trouble finding the hill due to studying the geologic maps of the area ahead of time and comparing them to Google Earth. When I got there I found a brown colored shale that was full of oblong pelecypod shells. I don’t know if I’d call them Oysters but they are a clam of sorts. Not needing more than a couple of pieces for my collection I quickly filled my bag and headed back to the truck. While walking around I found some nice slabs of sandstone with ripple marks on them as well as some strange red colored rocks that were shot through with green veins of some mineral. I picked up a couple of pieces of each and loaded them into the back of the truck thinking that my Aunt might like them as ornaments for her Garden. I was very happy heading back to Evanston and looked forward to the next day of hunting in central Utah.

Oyster hill is the brown shale layers in behind the white hill.

The section of ripple rock I took back for my Aunt

Some of the exposed rock with many exposed pelecypods

[Auspex]

I gotta' thank you for the time and effort you obviously put into making me feel like I was there; six attaboys, with sycamore leaf cluster!

[Shamalama]

Thank you, Auspex! I sat down intending to write a simple trip report but it turned into something much larger. I'm planning on printing out the text and pictures as a keepsake for myself and to send copies to my family.

[Phoenixflood]

Another awesome trip report.

[Terry Dactyll]

Dave... The Blue forest wood looks great.... no wonder you stopped off there....

[mommabetts]

Great report, thanks for sharing.