Been moving tons of rock the last few days -- quite literally, in fact. I call it training for when society collapses and we're thrust into the world of Mad Max. Not quite, but it has been nice to get out and dig more. Here is a sequence of events of removing a single big rock: Fun times! And what was in all that rock? Nothing much! Them's the breaks sometimes. The thing about this material is that you never know. It could look promising on the outside and along the visible edges, or it may be blank, but what is inside can only be determined by actually breaking into it. This rock was wide and very deep. It was also wedged and jammed in by every other rock, which in turn was wedged and jammed in by other rocks, ad infinitum. Sometimes the rock wiggles like a loose tooth, but just won't give. So, any finds from my spot for all those many hours? I've bagged a few more lichid fragments (one of which was a real heartbreaker as it was the edge of an exquisitely preserved pygidium with all the pustules, but it started just before the edge of where the rock stopped. Argh! A number of very wee Mystrocephala stummi pygidia, the usual pygidial/genal/thoracic/cranidia assortment of Pseudodechenella sp. and Crassiproetus crassimarginatus that I'm leaving in the field. But here's something pretty: A rostroconch (Conocardium cuneus). Rare as all git-out everywhere else but here. At this spot, I'm up to my back teeth in these things, spanning in size from a few millimetres up to 10 centimetres. Both the Amherstburg and Lucas Fm rocks at this location are well stocked with them. If nothing else could survive in the environment, or preserve well, these would. And now for something ugly: It's a complete Pseudodechenella sp. -- complete if we mean missing a tail and its cheeks. There's a bit more under the matrix, but not that much more. I might be able to expose the other side of the thorax at best. This one was lodged in a massive block buried several feet deep with only the top showing. Oh, and forget about reliable bedding planes. For the added challenge, it will appear on a rounded bump on the edge of the rock. Extraction was a bit nervy on this one, and it still shattered off a bit -- and that's why I carry super glue in the field for this kind of battlefield medicine.
I will likely make a few more trips to this spot even if the gains are minimal. I'm just biding time until Deb is free so we can get out collecting at a few other spots I need to check. We're also getting a new car (well, used, but a newer model with really low mileage), so it should hopefully not cack out when we're en route to somewhere like, say, Bowmanville for a dig that is now much harder to join up with these days. Losing my spot last October was really depressing. I don't foresee any new updates this week unless I come away with something amazing. Most of the other stuff -- not pictured -- is just the same old stuff. Finding a complete trilobite in this stuff is about as likely as finding an intact strawberry in your daiquiri, such is the nature of the facies. It won't stop me trying to beat the odds of this Devonian casino in trying to find that mystical, complete lichid. Since my MMA classes are canceled for the next few weeks, I might be able to get caught up on my trilobite drawings... I have a Damesella and a Metapolichas in the queue, but both are pustulose which equals beaucoup time to render. More notes from the Devonian underground soon... Comments are closed.
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Kane Faucher
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February 2024
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