Things have been extra busy as of late from the work perspective, but I have managed to scratch the fossil itch a bit. I am hopeful of getting out and about this weekend, and have already booked a three day trip over the Thanksgiving weekend, after which I can post some finds. For now, a quickie. I acquired some corynexochida for the collection. What looks like a series of Matryoshka dolls is five Ciliscutellum ciliensis from the Hunan province, China, Silurian in age. These are typically found in nodules, and WYSIWYG. Although nowhere near perfect, a decent representation of the species from a location I am not likely ever going to see in my lifetime. I've wanted a Thysanopeltis for a while, and the price was truly a steal for this one. Again, not the very best, but a good representative. Not much difference between this and the typical/common Devonian scutellids that come out of Morocco except the fringe of pygidial spines. It is unclear what purpose these served, be it some minor form of defense or courtship. In any event, this would make corynexochid species #28 in the collection, accounting now for more than 10% of the 234 distinct species I have cluttering my small home. The buyer I acquired this specimen and the others above has made my saved top sellers list, and I am likely to acquire more from him on account of some very unique offerings at very reasonable prices.
I suppose it is now one foot into the weekend, a possible prospecting mission on the immediate horizon, and the long weekend trip to look forward to. My schedule may be clogged with work obligations, but the season is not quite yet done with me yet. Now is not yet the time to take stock in all the travels and adventures of 2023, but to keep pushing forward until the tank is empty. It looks as though I fell into radio silence on this blog, with no new entries since summer began. And now that we are cruising into autumn and I'm back on campus teaching, this is usually the time of year the fossil season begins its colourful wind-down. July was pretty much a lull in collecting activity, less on account of the heat and more due to unseasonal raininess. In August, I did spend two weeks on the road to visit some exciting locales with a dear fossil comrade. Many adventures and mishaps occurred, but we made it through relatively unscathed, and even had a few brief interludes of luck. A week after I returned, I played host to two great collectors from the US. I took them on a tour of Arkona and Formosa Reef. If they could have stayed longer, I would have brought them to a few of my local spots, but I still managed to give them some specimens from those areas. Beyond that, I've been doing some prep now that I have working scribes again. The DNSons scribes are working quite well and I find they need a lot less PSI (about 65 instead of 100+). A nice enrolled Illaenus bayfieldi from the Mingan Fm. With these largely effaced trilobites, it can be a challenge to figure out if they are coming or going! Apart from some minimal loss of pleurae on one side, this is pretty much complete. I decided to leave it parked on matrix rather than free it entirely. Before I left on my two week journey, I had picked up a Leonaspis from Bolivia at a very good price.
There are a bunch of Ordovician and Silurian fossils I found on my time away, some of which I'll show at some later point. I also received some lovely trilobites from one of my fossil comrades, so that is in the queue for photographing and posting on a future blog update. One of those gifts included examples of Synphoria stemmata, a lovely dalmanitid of the lower Devonian Glenerie limestone. I've wanted one for a while ever since reading Lesperance's work on the synphoriinae. I do have a soft spot for Devonian dalmanitids, after all., I could have worse addictions! I may have two trips left in me to close out 2023. In all, it hasn't been the best of collecting years, but it was an improvement over 2022. Spending time with good fossil friends remains the highlight of the year. |
Kane Faucher
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February 2024
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