In January, we made a return trip to the location of our December Field Trip and were rewarded with a beautiful January day and great fossils. The morning was cold! What would become a muddy shore was a frozen shore when we arrived, and you had to use your rock hammer to flip rocks that were frozen in place. It warmed up nicely though and all were able to shed a layer or two by midday. We had a good mix of new and old members and collected a couple locales in the Mississippian age, Bangor Limestone. Below are a sample of what was found.
First the rocks on the shore are often full of fossils, these "hash" plates are beautiful and contain tons of brachiopods and bryozoans, along with other fossils.
There are Trilobits (primarily) and today these bits were mostly pygidiums (tails).
Complete crinoid calices, cephalopods (Spyroceras), and gastropods/goniatites? can also be found. The crinoid calyx appears to all be there but will require some prep to see it.
There are also plenty of loose fossils to be collected if you are willing to get down on the ground and look for them. Can you see the blastoids (two species of Pentremites) and many other fossils in the second picture below?
There are also shark teeth from 330 mya to be found! These don't always resemble what we think of as "sharks" today and are really cool fossils! The picture on the right is after trimming the slabs.
Finally, there are some layers that produce really great trace fossils, mostly burrows and feeding traces however occasionally there is a starfish resting trace (Asteriacites ichnospecies).
That is all for this time. I hope you enjoyed seeing the fossils as much as we enjoyed finding them!
Jim Braswell