Friday evening I logged into my email and there was a message from Raggedy Man that he was coming over to Bluff Country the next day and would I like to hunt? I emailed back that I had plans already and then Saturday dawned and my plans dimmed next to a day of fossil hunting and we met around 11 a.m.
Road construction blocked us from where he really wanted to hunt, but we started out at a site I had never taken anyone to before. Oh it was shale and fossilized! I think that between the two of us we pulled 3 complete Fisherites out and I know I had a bag full of fossils to carry to the pickup.
Site 1
Next we hit one of Caleb’s favorite sites. Raggedy Man broke rock and I walked along and picked up my two prizes for the day.
Site 2
This picture doesn’t do these justice at all. One is a brach outlined in pyrite that just sparkles like gold! The other is a perfectly round section of cephalopod with the siphuncal clearly showing.
My prizes for the day.
I was thinking that the sparkle might be real gold as we do have placer gold here, but with a sweep of his metal detecting wand Raggedy Man declared it pyrite – pretty though!
Metal Detecting Tool
And me with my prizes on a hot July Saturday! 😀
Old Bev with her prizes for the day.
Dummy me, I forgot to bring water and with the heat index approaching 90 I needed some! We ended up at The Village Square in Fountain eating some excellent homemade pie.
Raggedy Man enjoying homemade Apple Pie.
After two glasses of ice cold water, I had the Blueberry Rhubarb pie ala mode. 😀
Then we took off to Lanesboro, the one tourist trap in all of southeastern Minnesota – The B&B Capitol of MinnesOta! And we found a small quarry that was fossilized!
I spotted drusy quartz and the hunt for fossils was over. It was a “pretty rock” hunt for me.
These are much prettier than the picture!
The afternoon was waning so we drove back to see if we could get to the spot he really wanted to go to hunt. I knew a scenic route to the spot and we finally got there. I called this spot “Fossil Hill” or “The Valley of Fossils” as it is about a half mile of fossiliferous roadside hunting.
I left Raggedy Man at the top in a trilobite layer and proceeded to amble down the bluff with no backpack and just my camera. I hollered back at him to pick me up at the bottom when he was done. What a wonderful trek!
The valley was shaded and cool with a gentle breeze that brought the fragrance of wild flowers up the hill. Bird song, the humming of native bees, and the far off drone of an excavator were all that could be heard. In over an hour of hunting, only two vehicles passed on this isolated stretch of gravel road.
I don’t climb anymore, so the towering banks held little interest for me. But I always look up to see where the fossils were coming from.
This dry run was almost magical and called to be explored further, but not this day.
And then I ran into this creature…
Moth: White-striped Black
Trichodezia albovittata
A butterfly I had never seen before! It turned out to be a moth:
White-striped Black
Trichodezia albovittata (Guenée, 1857)
Layers of Fisherites.
There were bunches of native bee balm lining the ditch with the drone of native Bumble bees ever present.
Native bee balm and Bumble Bees
Common name:Bumble Bee
Scientific name: Bombus
Region: Many species throughout North America.
Across the valley I could see fresh cuts where perhaps some logging had been done. Ahhh, if only I had the energy and surefootedness to explore that virgin Galena treasure!
Then I noticed a layer of reddish clay/ash between a layer of rock and explored that with my Estwing rock hammer – no fossils that I could see in that spot.
Reddish layer embedded in the bedrock.
More fossils and trace fossils in the wash beside the road.
Trace fossil.
Vines flowing up and down the rock face.
I was approaching the bottom of the valley and looked back up. And then I noticed these curious fossils on the face of an embedded rock.
Perhaps trace of an Isotelus pygidium and part of another trilobite?
Coming to the bottom of the valley there was a riot of wild flowers.
And then the road construction. I just had to explore that riprap and fill.
And was rewarded with a small, just larger than the size of my hand grasp complete Fisherite!
Complete Fisherite in sitsu.
I ambled down into the field as this is a well known spot to find Native American artifacts, but no luck today. Then I was stopped by a couple in a red pickup truck who asked if I was fossil hunting. Oh yes, and we got into quite the discussion as the gentleman had found a fossil that he described as a worm circled around itself.
Just then Raggedy Man came driving down and I showed the man my ID sheet that Raggedy Man had in his back seat. He identified his fossil as a Maclurites and I told him about this website and fossil adventure blog as a resource if he found any more. And he shared the fill I was working was from this valley as the DOT had carved out a spot for local fill.
I would call this a Fisherite Day as between us we probably brought home five complete Fisherites and a whole lot of other fossils.
Raggedy Man dropped me off around 6 p.m. and started his four and half hour drive home. I had given him a road map of Fillmore County, rather hard to come by, and showed him where to see one of the more historic spots to hunt fossils that comes right out of the 1800’s literature and off he went.
A good day fossil hunting.
😀
