Spring Five Site Fossil Hunt with GEODE!

April 18th dawned as a beautiful day for the annual Spring Flood Run for motorcycle enthusiasts from around the region. Bob took off on his Harley and I decided to go get my annual State Park sticker at Forestville State Park, just 12 miles away. I wasn’t really planning on fossil hunting, but I threw my backpack in the truck “just in case”. 😀

After picking up my State Park sticker, I just couldn’t resist stopping at the big road cut coming out of the park just up from Maple Springs Campground.

What a beautiful day with the temperatures in the upper 50s, the air crisp with the smell of new life after a long winter, and fresh broken shale showing in the road cuts. I started by walking down what seemed like giant steps in the wash beside the road.

And within a hundred feet I was rewarded!

This beautiful cephalopod insitsu!
I continued down the cut, poking at the fresh fossilized shale but being very selective as to what I wanted to carry.

I got about a third of the way down the road cut when I decided to cross the road and check out the old abandoned quarry on the other side.

Several years ago the owner of the campground had told me that there was a “breather” in that quarry that could be easily spotted in the winter. Well, we were long past snow on the ground, but I wanted to check it out.

Lots of freshly broken rock, but none particularly fossiliferous, but it was an interesting little exploration. 🙂

It was so beautiful out, that I didn’t want to go home and plant potatoes like I should have been doing. Heck, Bob was having fun on his Harley, why not me fossil hunting?

I decided to check out the old dry wash down toward Mystery Cave – not so dry! It looked more like a river!

But I caught a glimpse of a rock face I hadn’t seen before and decided to venture over that way.

That would have surely been hidden if the trees were leafed out! A new hunt to consider later in the summer.

Then I decided to check out my new favorite spot. I love the quiet and the scenery of that site and just sitting and picking through the always plentiful brachiopods. It feels like sitting on a 500 million year old seashore just picking up the sea shells.

The winter’s freeze thaw had broken lots of fresh shale off and I noticed this lovely broken open Minnesota geode in the rock.

I was just sitting and picking up perfect little brachiopods that had leached out of the muddy layers between the rock…

When I saw this egg shaped rock. Ahhh, perhaps it is a geode! I stashed it in my backpack to check out later at home.

Then I decided to move on and go to that trilobite site I had discovered last year. Oh, it was being worked already! You can always tell when shale is piled up one on top of the other.

Hopefully someone got lucky!

I was getting tired and oh so satisfied, but on the way home I decided to check out the spot where Bob had found the cigarette pack sized trilobite we had affectionately named “Stucky” as he was stuck in the rock.

Trilobites are gregarious creatures and there were likely to be many more at this site. Lots and lots of newly broken shale was slowly sliding down the slope.

As I strolled up the ditch, I noticed the crevices in the rock and thought about all of the sink holes in our Karst topography. They were just larger versions of what I was seeing here. These make good lairs for fox, skunk and rattlesnakes.

I was tired and my pack was full, time to go home.

Here is my haul for the day.

And that rock I thought may be a geode?

Beautiful quartz crystals!

So my prizes for the day were these…

And a lovely day spent in God’s creation, quietly hunting for traces of long deceased life at the bottom of what once was an ocean on the earth’s equator.

😀