This past year has been precedent-setting for fossil collecting as it has also meant a staggering number of new and fascinating specimens added to a collection that seems to have colonized a lot of space in the house. No fewer than 8 trips to Hungry Hollow, countless trips to my nearby “honey hole,” some visits to the Ottawa and Rideau rivers, and 2 fabulous multi-day adventures at Penn Dixie. Deb and I have found numerous trilobites, including several full prone Greenops widderensis, well over a hundred Eldredgeops rana rollers and prone specimens (this in itself a major change from a few years back when I hadn’t bagged even one full specimen), and some fairly large and nearly complete Pseudogygites latimarginatus. And that’s just the trilobites. Several new types of corals, gastropods, brachiopods, crinoids, and cephalopods were also added - and even a fish plate. So many were gathered, in fact, that I was glad to be able to sell off some excess in support of the United Way campaign at work. The above trilobite, Flexicalymene ouzregui, was my first fossil purchase, a gift to Deb for all her great work and finds this past year. It is Ordovician in age and from the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. Coral of the Year prize is tied with this specimen and one acquired from a trail. Both are Devonian A lot of contenders for Assemblage of the Year, but the usual stuff from Arkona can take a backseat this time. It is a tie between this gravestone-sized block of black shale from Ottawa with plenty of Pseudogygites latimarginatus trilobites (and nautiloids), and an assemblage of Eldredgeops rana from Penn Dixie Among a lot of brassy-coloured Goniatites and sundry other Devonian goodies, this slightly pyritized nautiloid from the Widder shale weathered out whole and not in its usual crushed state in the shale, earning it Cephalopod of the Year. It was a bit of a challenge to settle on Gastropod of the Year, what with some neat high-spired specimens, but let's give the honour to my specimen Naticonema lineata from the encrinal layer of the Arkona Fm. Although I did find a crinoid "bulb," I'm giving this pyritized beauty from the Arkona mud-shale Crinoid of the Year even if it is just a stem. Amidst hundreds upon hundreds of brachiopods collected this year, including giant spirifers and the like, I could have copped out and said all of them are deserving of the honour of Gastropod of the Year, but let's opt for this specimen that preserved the umbilicus. And the only fish fossil contender of the year, a confirmed fish plate from the Widder Fm Contenders for Trilobite of the Year are legion. Instead of simply picking the biggest or most "perfect" specimen, this year is a tie between a Greenops widderensis that Deb found in the brittle Widder shale of Arkona, and an Eldredgeops rana that had been twisted and wrenched into an odd configuration, found at the Hungry Hollow Mbr of the Widder.
What follows are some odds and sods I hadn't got around to posting. Until the 2017 collecting season! Comments are closed.
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Kane Faucher
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February 2024
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