We had mixed blessings on our three day trip. Some bangers, some disappointments. Photos of our finds when things get cleaned up, but for now, two new additions from the post office. 

This Salterocoryphe salteri from the Ordovician Valongo Fm of Portugal has the classic distortion that makes one's eyes a bit screwy. A none too shabby example.

I was more excited about this one. A Rhenops sp. from the famous Bundenbach slate of Germany. This Devonian asteropygine truly pops with its natural pyritization against the dark grey slate. These are a bit rarer than the typical Chotecops ferdinandi (which I also have an example of). 

Suffice it to say, our trip yielded more bugs in the double digits but not as productive as we would have liked. That said, the season is still very young, and there are so many other localities for us to see about. We've been spoiled rotten so far. And now that teaching is finished until September, it's go time. I can barely keep up with the cataloguing, label-making, prep, illustration, research, and site work -- but there are much worse problems to have!

I must have my upcoming strategic planning course I teach this week on my mind, because the refrain "what gets measured, gets managed" is on a loop. In terms of prep on plate #1, I went on a bit of a discovery tour for more and was surprised by six more for a current tally of 45 individuals. Here is the map so far:

The numbers with "(v)" indicate partial or full ventral; green numbers are today's discoveries. There are three exploration zones where more may be lurking. As this is now taking way longer to complete than my suboptimal equipment will make reasonable, I am farming the remainder of the prep off to a local guy who does excellent work. Why spend 10-25x the time with my equipment when someone with much better stuff can get it done faster and better? The plate is just too important for me to proceed at my snail's pace. 

​As I teach all next week, I anticipate my next update will likely be a new incoming bug from the postal formation (also one I plan to illustrate). 

Long slog in the outdoor lab, and this is likely at least another 50-100 hours. There are three cluster "zones" on plate #1, and progress is slowing down. Gorgeous as this plate is, I can only stare at it through the scope for so many hours before I lose my mind. Time to set it aside for a little bit and rotate to some other things. Here is the state of play thus far:

When the going is slow, it is nice to pick some low hanging fruit for a quick win. This Eldredgeops rana may not be rare and highly sought, but the stratigraphic context is important. I hunted the Arkona area for years, and apart from some whispers of this bug in the Widder Fm shale layers, it was all Greenops. Finding Eldredgeops is far more typical of the Hungry Hollow Member, but they do appear in the relatively lower Widder shale. The problem has been that all my excavating work was higher up in the strata where the Greenies are more common, and the lower part of the Widder shale was buried under metres of slump. Well, this Arkona bucket list item is now off the list. Fossil season 2026 is still handing out treasure. 

With next week taken up with teaching, it is time to put the collecting and prep tools away. But, rest assured, there is more on both fronts coming.

Today was all about plate #1. More examples were discovered in the process, although the bulk of the work was focused on exposing more of the already visible ones. Here is the full plate:

This is a very slow process. What seems easy is big lumps that need patient abrasion. I bounced from one bug to the next, mostly for sanity.

And here is a closeup of the most dense cluster. There are three ventrals in the mix which will take an eternity. Some of them are getting a bit precarious in how they abut one another, so more care and patience will be required.

Here is the wild blue yonder side that I briefly explored. Obviously, it hasn't received anywhere near the love of the existing dense cluster, but its time will come.

Sadly, I have to put the toys away given incoming rainy days, and then a possible dig, and then a week of teaching. It will likely be mid-May before I can get back on this and the other plates. Still, despite the labour, this is a fantastic monospecific assemblage!

Scheduling was not on our side to get out and dig today at a new excavation spot, but it can cool off for the time being. Instead, I spent the warm, sunny afternoon at my outdoor lab continuing on with the prep. 

​After returning from the gym, we picked up some necessary supplies. 

On the baking soda front, the 5 gallon tub is starting to see bottom, and the Flexi plates need a lot of blasting. Two big bags of the stuff should keep me going, although I probably can get through a gallon a day. I was also low on acetone. Plate #1 almost suffered a calamity when the thin (~0.75cm) layer started separating from the lower layer, threatening all sorts of cracking in stupid places. We were able to safely separate it with some prior cyanoacrylate wicking, but it would not stay stable for too long. Thankfully, that is what Paraloid-72 is for. A handful of those beads dissolving in a small Mason jar, and I could apply four plastic coats to secure the back side. I did this intermittently during breaks from abrasion work on plate #2.

Whereas plate #1 has about 27 examples so far (with ore to uncover, no doubt), plate #2 also needs some love. As of today's count, 15 on it, and likely more to discover there as well. Here is a comparison of the before and after so far.

One would have to zoom in to see more of the details. Unlike plate #1 where they seem to cluster close together, this one seems to have them more evenly spaced. Some of them are buried in an awful crust that is a challenge for baking soda to work through, but I am saving any dolomite mix for later. 

While waiting for plate #1's Paraloid treatments, I decided to spend time revealing the already known bugs on the plate, moving from the roughing phase of seeing if they are complete to getting them to phase  2 of refining their appearance prior to final touches. In essence, I was trying to make the discovered examples more visible, but I intend to return to exploration. The above is an example of the phase 2 process. Still some cemented gunk to deal with, but the bulk of the matrix is gone. 

The mystery remains: Why are they here? Why are they so gregarious? When compared to the Pseudogygites assemblages, many of those appear upside-down as they died somewhere else in the water column and then, through hydrodynamics, drifted down to the sea bed -- picture the motion of falling leaves. In this case, the majority of the Flexis appear dorsal These are carbonate shelf-sitters, not deep sea wanderers. Another interesting clue is that they are all roughly the same size. Sure, tidal sorting explains why shells can appear in similarly sized assemblages, but there is not much by way of tides way down in the anoxic abyss. Although it looks like they lived on the sea bed, it would have likely been an inhospitable environment. I am still unclear how the taphonomy can be explained here.

Tomorrow promises to be another warm, sunny day for outdoor prep. I will be returning to (stabilized!) plate #1 to perform phase 2 prep. After, I still need to carefully scribe a section of the overlying brach-encrusted layer to see if there are more. 

​The following day looks like rain, so prep tools down. But, some cabinet display work and possibly breaking in the new pencil set to doodle trilobites is likely to take place. 

I don't spend a lot of time in the Arkona area material any more now that the north banks are off limits slump, and the pits are victims of their own popularity. Over the years, numerous visitors have steadily collected more than can be replenished naturally, with many layers peeled back to nothingness. It does mean being a bit more inventive to find outcrops. I did find one that was so-so, but was quite good today for an excavation spot, just a few feet above the lowest Widder shale which is largely blank, there are sudden pulses of brachiopods and numerous Greenops parts. Alongside it are the Eldredgeops​ that are phasing out. An association between the two is fleeting, and it was a bucket list item to find that. Today I did, alongside some potential complete Greenops​. I am pretty happy with this find, and it will be added to the prep queue.

Oh dear. Not finding tons of trilobites seems like a problem we don't have. Our recent return to our site was no exception. We came away with numerous specimens (we have yet to count them, and there is more to find). Our two biggest hits were death assemblages of Flexicalymene croneisi and associated Pseudogygites latimarginatus. We also picked up "singles" of the latter. 

It also means we have a much longer prep queue than we anticipated. We don't want to waste good field days in the lab (better for winter and rainy days), but when the plates are very large, we have to work outside on nice days rather than collect. 

​Both Angela and I likely put in a full working day doing just that. A lot of our work has been preliminary quick passes across several plates.  We added two more (smaller) plates to the Flexis, and one massive Pseudo plate that so far has 10. Plate #1 almost went to bits, but we stabilized well and it is holding (we need to get acetone to mix in some Paraloid for the backing). We also discovered another Flexi there. On plate 2, more were found as well as we continue abrasion-exploration. Plates 4 and 5 have a smaller number, but more may be found there as well. 

This slideshow doesn't tell the full tale, but gives a glimpse into what we are dealing with. We're up to our back teeth in both bugs now. Angela has been the perfect lab assistant, and even took over after I put in five hours (she was the one who discovered a new bug on plate 1 today). 

Although tomorrow would be a great day for more prep progress, I'll be on another dig. 

It. Never. Stops.  (And I love it!). 2026 has already been better than 2025 by a country mile. 

These two arrived courtesy of a dear field comrade. 

This Cordania falcata from the Haragan Fm of Oklahoma is a small but rare delight. Despite its harpid-like appearance with the wide brim and long genals, it is actually an elegant proetid. A welcome addition to the collection!

If there is any glaring lacunae in the collection, it is the paucity of Cambrian bugs. This quite large Olenellus getzi from the famous Kinzers Fm in Pennsylvania will fill the lower Cambrian hole quite well. This one was originally collected by Eugene Thomas back in the 1980s, so it has a bit of added history. 

It will be back out into the field again (and back at prep work) fairly soon before I have to spend a week teaching, but perhaps more updates to come. 

Last weekend was a splendid opportunity to go digging in Ontario's Ordovician, and we certainly came away with a healthy haul. Our travels spanned from the Gull River Fm to the Whitby Fm, with mostly deep dives in the Bobcaygeon Fm. 

GULL RIVER LOCALITIES
We spent time at two spots in the Gull River rock. There was quite a stark difference in the depositional and faunal environment between the two, with the first being more akin to the Leray beds. These rocks have a yellowish-orange hue. In terms of trilobites, the paleoenviornment seems to be restricted to mostly Bathyurus and some fragments of Ceraurus aff. gabrielsi​. 

We did not spend terribly long at this location, so finds were minimal. That said, I did pick up this ventral Bathyurus that is fairly disarticulated. It is a shabby example compared to my previous visit last year.

The second location was an entirely different environment. As is well known, the most productive zones of the Gull River are generally the uppermost stack below the contact with the lower Bobcaygeon. At this particular locality, there are beds of very fissile, occasionally blocky/crumbly grey shales sitting atop a limestone hardground that has numerous Isotelus and Ceraurus​ parts, and wildly abundant nautiloids. 

A bit of a heartbreaker, but this Isotelus platycephalus (distinguished from I. gigas due to its rounder pygidium and smaller eyes) is a potential restoration candidate. We spent some time at this location, but did not come away with great spoils this time.

BOBCAYGEON LOCALITIES
We visited a number of these on our trip. At the first one, trilobite diversity can be stellar. In fact, we encountered (but forgot to photograph) a large slab with negatives of Failleana, Calyptaulax, Ceraurus, Hemiarges, Flexicalymene, and Isotelus​. What a variety pack! 

This wee Ceraurus​ from one of the two spots we visited.

We did come away with at least one trilobite: an Erratencrinurus vigilans giving a piggyback to two brachiopods. The head is still buried, but one can see the tell-tale pustules that make up its cephalic ornamentation. 

BILLINGS LOCALITY
We didn't visit too many of these locations. In fact, just the one, which is a very old shale dump. Much of the shale is weathering into mushy chips, so it requires some digging for more stable books of shale. There is a layer in the Billings that is almost entirely dominated by pyritized nautiloids and with a few pulses of Triarthrus rougensis​. 

This would be our most intact example. In almost every case, the spines are transferred to the negative, which means it is important to collect both sides. 

​WHITBY LOCALITIES
Perhaps by far the greatest excitement of the trip was being able to explore the Collingwood Member of this formation, well known for Pseudogygites and some Triarthrus​. 

Both of these are ventral/negatives. 

This much smaller one is slightly disarticulated and quite exfoliated. 

The real excitement, however, was the trip-maker of the season so far. Flexicalymene ?croneisi is said to appear as rare fragments in this paleoenvironment. I recall last year finding an isolated cephalon of one in the Billings Fm. Imagine finding a massive cluster of them...

This is one side of the plate as found. On the upper right hand side is a tiny Pseudogygites. But if one plate were not enough, how about two? The primary plate has somewhere in the neighbourhood of 26 or so, and the secondary plate contains about 13. We also found a solo specimen that I used as a tester to ensure my blast media mix was ideally suited for when I tackle the plates. Before and after, albeit still unfinished:

Obviously, the plates are far too large to fit in my current blast box, so I've had to move my lab to the backyard. 

The first step is to scribe some of the upper layer to see if more Flexis are hidden. There is only the one layer where they appear, sandwiched between two hard, brachiopod-cemented layers. 

Moving on to abrasion, this is the progress on just a portion of the primary plate. In the process, I discovered more hidden, and I would not be surprised if the total count continues to climb. There are at least two ventrals here, which take a bit longer to prep. Still so much more to do!

And once I can finish the first plate, here is the second plate.which I don't doubt will yield up some further surprises. 

So overall, a pretty great first phase of the fossil season. Between these finds and that complete Pseudodechenella from the Dundee Fm, I'd have to say it has been fantastic.Once the prep on the plates are complete, it will be time to find a place to display them. We'll see how long the prep will take as it is contingent on good weather and in between more fossil trips.

We came back not long ago from a banger of a trip with some awe-dropping finds. At least two of those finds will require me working outside as the two multi-plates (36 and 13 complete prone Flexicalymene croneisi) are just too large for the blast box. Other goodies were also had, and we had a great time as well collecting a few spots with M and C. So far this season, we have encountered 31 species of trilobite in Ontario, so we are off to a great start.

For now, this came in from the Postal Formation (and there are at least two others en route). This wee Ceratarges cf. ?​aries was just too darn spiny-cute not to get.  I'll get to posting some finds from last weekend's adventure in a bit once I feel they are more "presentable." That said, no sense having an update without some trilobite eye candy.