Jim came out last year and we hunted – pretty exciting too! Read about it here:
http://www.bluffcountryfossils.net/blog/old-dead-things-bev-hunt-in-bluff-country/
Well Jim had a good time and decided to come back this year with his tools in hand. It’s mid-September but the weather was superb with blue skies and temps in the upper 60s. And we had a whirlwind hunt hitting 5 spots in 6 hours with time out to grab lunch at Fountain at the Village Square – known for having the BEST PIE in Bluff Country. I had pecan and it was yummy! 😀
We started out at Masonic Park, checked the beach and then hit the ditches on the road sides.
Jim working a road ditch.
He found some nice gastropods and I ended up with a huge trilobite eye!
Isotelus trilobite eye!
More on that here:
http://www.bluffcountryfossils.net/blog/huge-trilobite-eye/
This was a one day, whirlwind hunt so we didn’t bother to hit the quarry there.
Then off to the road cut just above the Village of Fillmore. We started in the middle, he went down and I went up. Jim got TWO beautiful complete Fisherites aka Receptaculitids!
Jim with his best complete Fisherite.
I too got a complete Fisherite, but it cracked coming out – to be expected when you note the cracks in it before getting it out.
Complete Fisherite aka Receptaculitid.
And yes, bryozoans, some very nice bash plates, brachs laying loose in the shale, and a very nice horn coral.
Jim on the rocks.
Off to the next spot and although we didn’t come out with much, we were treated to huge hash plates of the Ordovician seabed.
Very large, heavily fossilized hash plates.
I was fascinated with the cephalopod imprint in this rock, just which I could have found the ceph!
Cephalopod imprint
And yes, we did break some rock here, but with little success.
Jim breaking rock.
But some of the rock was flected with a beautiful gold colored mineral! I was fascinated, so I brought a piece home to get IDed on thefossilforum.com
Pyrite in southeast Minnesota
And that post is here, if you would like to know more:
http://www.bluffcountryfossils.net/blog/gold-pyrite-in-bluff-country/
We stopped for lunch and then off to another site! Jim didn’t find too much here, but I found my first whole Bellerophon! I was so excited! Caleb had told me that there were no Bellerophons on this side of the Mississippi River. AND a perfect horn coral!
Bellerophon side 1
Bellerophon side 2
Off to our last site and we were both tuckered out by then. But I found several Maclurites and that made me happy. And Jim got a nice big cephalopod in matrix!
So here is “the haul”, mine’s on the tailgate and his is packed away for the most part already.
The Haul
He stayed overnight and left before I got up, but left me this in the tree! LOL 😀
Christmas bulb in tree.
So if you see a Christmas bulb at a fossil site or along a county road, you can guess that Old Dead Things has been there!
