Got out for the day to my Onondaga spot. As usual, plenty of rostroconch/brachs/gastros, and no complete trilobites. But, still some neat stuff regardless A typical haul of non-trilobite items I toss in the bucket. This rostroconch is huge. It's about 2 inches wide! A litany of Coronura parts. The last image just hurts. What would have been a full pygidium has been ravaged by the forces of weathering, leaving only the faintest segment outlines. A fragment of what I suspect to be another Coronura, but I'll need to compare against the images to be fully certain. The usual assortment of Anchiopsis anchiops. The one on the far right has some fine calcite crystallization. nIntact cephalons are incredibly and mysteriously scarce in this material. Even isolated glabellas of the dalmanitids seem absent. Here is the positive and negative of a cephalon. Although this picture doesn't make it clear, the right eye is intact with visible lenses. Sadly, there is not enough diagnostic detail to pin down which of the synphoriinae this belongs to. A nice surprise, making this the fourth synphoriinae, and sixth species overall, to emerge from this material. The high axial ridge and pygidial rib count makes this a dead ringer for Trypaulites sp. The comparative image on the right is from Ludvigsen's classic text wherein he also states this species has not been reported in Ontario, but technically should appear given the shared fauna in the Appalachian basin. Not the best picture, nor the most thrilling way to end my trip report, but here is what I suspect to be a fairly diminutive (under a centimetre) example of another Trypaulites, making that two in one day. Not as impressive as the first one, and very similar in appearance and preservation as the ones I find in my Amherstburg Formation material (flattened and heavily silicified). So, overall, not a bad day. I can now report trilobite species number six at this location, if not also ticking off all the available synphoriinae for this strata (very likely Moorehouse Member of the Onondaga). If I can't find complete trilobites, I can at least draw them. This took a ridiculous amount of time, but I think it turned out well.
Not sure when and what my next update will be. Rain is in the forecast for the next while, and I have some course preparation to get to. If I do get out in the next little while, it may just be to my Amherstburg spot. Comments are closed.
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Kane Faucher
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February 2024
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