The weather reports said that Saturday would be sunny and warm, so I decided to take advantage for much-needed fossil therapy! I'm not a fan of getting up at the crack of dawn but looked forward to a really beautiful day fossil hunting. I had to be at the designated meeting area by 8ish and it's a 40-minute drive from home... I just enjoy those drives though. I get there much earlier than usual meeting several members in the parking lot. Got to chat and get caught up with them until the others arrived. We had approximately ten folks show up, three of them who have never been to the site.
We arrived onsite and I was totally surprised. With all the rain we'd been getting the past several months I thought the entire site was totally overgrown and looking like a tropical rain forest! It wasn't all that bad, so I got my equipment together and looked for a spot with one goal in mind, find fossil track ways.
I encountered a muddy spot with several turkey tracks and see the irony of hunting fossilized track ways of reptiles and amphibians. Right above the middle track you can see what appears to be a frog track...it was pointed out by an individual who knows more about trace fossils than I? It started warming up too, but we had a lil' breeze as well as some cloud cover so it helped as the temperatures rose on site.
The area I picked first seemed to produce a lot of marine fossils Here are a few of those finds. Pic#1- Piece of ammonoid, Pic#2- tiny bivalve
I moved on to other areas on site finding some plant fossils such as ferns, and can't get enough of those! Pic#1- Mariopteris ferns with a Alethopteris leaflet (pinnules), Pic#2- Alethopteris leaves (pinnules), Pic#3- love the shale slabs where fern leaflets (pinnules) drop onto smooth mud and are frozen in time
I revisited a spot where I had found track ways previously and surprisingly found several tracks I had missed. I then realized it took several rainstorms to wash the stone from the previous excavation. Pic#1- the bigger tetrapod track ways is covered by a piece of shale and will have to prep out to expose the rest of the track way... there are faint smaller track ways that go to the right past the fern leaf (pinnule), Pic#2- very faint tetrapod tracks, Pic#3- Diplichnites (arthropod track way), and the other covered by a piece of shale that will have to be prepped as well
As the day progressed it got a tad bit warmer and pretty much drained the energy from those attending. Some of them packed up and left except the diehards but the heat and humidity began to wear on them too so the decision was made to leave around 12ish earlier than past excursions. I didn't find the quantity I normally do but still had a great time. I look forward to going back when the site is turned over.
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