A Quarry Full of Fossils

What a spectacular view from the highest point of the quarry where we were hunting Mississippian fossils in February. It was a terrific February day; we had some sun early but then the clouds rolled in, but it stayed nicely cool (not cold). We had a large group as we always do when we go to this exceptional site.

We hunted the fresh spoil piles; fortunately, the layers of shale and shaly limestone are of no value to the quarry operators, but the fossils love these layers. This quarry is exceptional for invertebrate and vertebrate (shark teeth primarily) marine fossils making it a very exciting place to collect. The following are examples of some of the invertebrate fossils found on the trip.

From top left the above pics are of the following: a rugose coral - Zaphrentis spinulosum, blastoid - Pentremites sp, blastoid - Pentremites sp, a Conularid, collection (bryozoans, corals, brachiopod, blastoids, and crinoid calices), colonial coral, bryozoan - Archimedes sp, and crinoid calices (the complete ones are Phanocrinus sp).

The next group of pictures are of some of the "shark" fossils found. There were a very unusually high number of Petalodus sp (wish I had more pictures to share) teeth found on this trip by many of the group.

From top left, the first two pics are teeth of Petalodus sp (the first one as found and the second one after being partially prepped out of the matrix), the next pic is a group are teeth and spine segments in matrix (the Petalodus in the previous picture can be seen unprepped in the bottom left), next are a few loose teeth including, and the last picture is a section of spine (after being prepped- it can be seen unprepped in the middle right in the previous picture) with barbs clearly visible along the bottom.

It was another great trip to this truly awesome location! Hope to see you next time.

Jim Braswell