I decided to make it a day for fossil hunting as I got up at the crack of dawn to see the sun rise. The beautiful sunrise was an indication that it was going to be a pretty day. Today I will be hunting Carboniferous Period plant, trackways and marine fossils. The Alabama Paleontological Society had planned a field trip to this site on May 8th but will be unable to make that day and found that an APS leader was overseeing a group today, May 1st. I was able to get permission to attend and help out. Little did I know that it would be two waves of adults and kiddos descending up on the site later? I get to the designated meeting area a few minutes before and before I know it 40+ FAF members and vehicles pull into the parking lot! Wow! As all those folks were coming in the APS leader decided to head to site as were arriving in the parking lot.
When we arrived on site I got in about 15 minutes of fossil hunting before the caravan arrived. It has been close to 3 months since I was on this site due to rain cancelling out other field trips back there. The last participants did a lot of stone splitting exposing lots of fossils to the elements thus allowing me to find really cool stuff just sitting on the surface!
The caravan arrived and made my way up to the gathering area for the presentation and introduction as both the APS Leader, and I was designated the Paleontologist on site for the day...how cool is that! Lots of kiddos with this group and lots of fossils for them to find as there was excitement in the air for the kiddos and adults too! After the presentation they were let loose and I went back to hunting those exposed fossils. I found a number of tetrapod, and fern fossils as well as a fan-shaped Brachiopod! While roaming the site I was able to help identify finds for the participants especially the kids. I later found this was the first wave and the second comes after 1:00 pm! Pic#1- Pos/Neg shale plates of a Whittleseya, fossilized pollen sac. Pic#2- Trackway through soft mud showing some claw prints of a tetrapod. Pic#3- Another trackway through mud showing a few claw prints of a tetrapod. Pic#4- Whittleseya/pollen sac fossils, one of them situated on a concretion.
As, we waited on the other group to arrive I got to do some more fossil hunting. Several feet from our vehicles was an area that I thought was picked over, so I thought. Laying on the surface was a Diplichnites trackway and a large slab that was calling my name and needed split that hadn't been touched! I split it and there she wrote! I found three trackway slabs in thirty minutes time and man was I excited! With those discoveries, my goal was met. Yep, needless to say...I'm done for the day! Pic#5- Partial trackway of a tetrapod. Pic#6- Alethopteris fern pinnules. Pic#7- Faint trackway of a tetrapod. Pic#8- Fan shaped Brachiopod. Pic#9&10- Mariopteris fern fronds.
My goal for the second wave of families is focus on being available for identification help and help the kiddos find fossils! The second wave was smaller than the first but had a number of kiddos. It has been awhile since I'd been around young kids but this was fun! The next two hours was spent finding fossils for them and just seeing the excitement on their faces made the rest of the day complete. We wrapped it up around 4ish and head home. What a great, beautiful day to find the coolest fossils! Pic#11- Two different sets of trackways, this slab thought to be a "predation trackway", where the tetrapod snatched up a arthropod for a meal. Upon closer inspection both trackways lead in opposite directions guessing that both trackways were created at different times? Pic#12- Two different sets of Diplichnites created by two different arthropods.