Fossilized Road Ditch
385th Ave. is a gravel road. Do this hunt after a rain as the road dust really covers the fossils up! It is just southeast of this sign a ways. I pulled a very nice large rock that is heavily fossilized, I just didn’t know with what until I got it cleaned.
I got it cleaned up and WOW!
What appears to be a BIG Isotelus Trilobite Thoratic Segment and remineralized broken bits of shells – IDed by Caleb, Midwestpaleo.com on the sidebar, on thefossilforum.com
This is a large, heavily fossilized rock.
Trilo Parts.
Bits of cracked, crazed and remineralized shell.
Pretty cool for a five minute stop along a gravel road!
The thoratic segment appears to be a full 6 inches wide! Largest one I’ve ever found!
And if you think about the thorax on an Isotelus being 1/2 to 1/3 of what the length would be, well, that would make the critter 12-18 inches long!
I found this picture here:
http://qvcproject.blogspot.com/2012/11/trilobites-and-tragedy-in-third-reich.html
And I have never encountered this many large shell parts in a rock OR have seen this kind of remineralization of the cracks before. Just click on the pics to make them larger.
Remember, trilobites are gregarious, so there are probably more there.
And the smaller ones don’t get broken up as bad.
Happy Hunting!
