Well, that was a much longer delay than anticipated, but it was entirely my fault for falling way behind on updating the old blog. That said, I wouldn't say any of my trips have resulted in any jaw-dropping finds yet. In this post, I will just concentrate on the local material I scavenged via various ditches and pits, filled as they are with Devonian trash salad tossed by the retreating glaciers. I will save my Quebec trip report for later, in addition to some very fantastic additions to the trilobite collection -- all of which deserve entries of their own. I've been out locally about 17 times this year already, visiting and revisiting some spots, and prospecting a few new ones. I am getting very bad at remembering to take photos when out on a dig, and there are likely several interesting pieces only my memory has recorded as they have been left in the field. So, a whiplash tour, starting with site #1. This I visited on New Year's Day, but winter would blanket everything until March. So mostly examples of Eldredgeops rana in a fissile mudshale similar to that found in western NY. These are also filled with lingulae and nautiloids. What is of note about this Hamilton Group outlier facies is that the size of the trilobites can be quite large. I later revisited this area and found a cephalon ~5 cm (2") wide. Site #2 By this time it is March and the snows are peeling back with just some stubborn stuff in the shadows and ditches. This particular spot has yielded some nice Terataspis parts in the past, but not on this day. My focus in this material is the Bois Blanc Fm rocks, and they are very chert-dominant with plenty of corals. The texture and colour is a clear sign of this material, and is worth the time to split... carefully. Although they can be brutally hard chert requiring sledge force, shattered bits are like bullets. No great finds on this outing. Not pictured would be the sad phacopidae fragment and one Crassiproetus pygidium. On to site #3 This site I bumped into late autumn last year and wanted to perform due diligence. It is a dump of Dundee Fm armour stone. This stuff is brutally hard and largely parsimonious, with no clear bedding planes. I found one crappy Pseudodechenella pygidium (not pictured) along with the usual sparse arrangements of grain-supported coral, rostroconch, and brachiopods. There are sometimes very busy "planes" of brachiopods, but they are fairly low diversity and monotonous. Site #4 This is a site with similar material to that of site #2, except that it is in the woods. The focus is mostly on Bois Blanc Fm material, but other Devonian rocks are present from the Amherstburg Fm and Dundee Fm. I had checked this site back in late autumn and was rewarded with some tantalizing Terataspis parts and spied some large fragments of Anchiopsis. On this trip, a fancy gastropod in the first photo, and the typical rock to bust in the right photo. Not pictured would be the encounters with Teratapsis (tiny fragment not worth bringing home), a Crassiproetus fragment, and some phacopidae parts (either Burtonops or Viaphacops). Site #5 Yet another late autumn site I returned to with a bit more gusto this year. This was a proetid-a-palooza with numerous Pseudodechenella parts and a few Crassiproetus. The material is uniformly Dundee Fm from a particular facies where it appears diagenetically reworked with a few vuggy spots (a bit like Formosa Reef), and some of the fossils come out in hues of pink and purple due to the unique mineralization conditions. I have encountered similar material elsewhere, at a spot in Oxford County. Much of the layers are ugly or blank, or otherwise very busy and tumbled about. It is in the latter the trilobite fragments can be found, but such high energy conditions do not favour complete specimens -- the usual story for Ontario's Devonian outside of Arkona. Site #6 This was a new one I found via scouring Google Earth. The first section was a blend of Amherstburg and Lucas Fms, but sadly not one trace of trilobite. A good diversity of bryozoans, coral, occasional rostroconch, and large stromatoporoids. The section I checked afterward was the crappy Dundee Fm armour stone. Site #7 This locality is actually one I've gone back to repeatedly since August of 2019, and the site where I was able to add a lot of new and exciting specimens from the Amherstburg Fm. Of course, hundreds of visits means I've pretty much tapped the place out, but there are still things to find, including some of the usual proetid parts and a genal spine of what Allart van Viersen would likely reclassify as Huginarges (formerly Acanthopyge). I may have pretty much drained this site of any major finds, which is good timing as I suspect housing development will be encroaching on this spot. Site #8 I call this site "the ditch" for a reason because it is... a ditch, running alongside a corn field. Some of the ugliest looking rocks come out of here, mottled with chert or with bituminous partings and staining. Still, it has produced some interesting fragments. All of these are sourced from the Bois Blanc Fm, so pieces of Anchiopsis and the usual proetids and phacopidae. No terries, though. There are sometimes very significant sparry calcite crystals in the material. Site #9 This was another new spot found via Google Earth, but also on my radar since last year. The material here is the usual dumped mix, but the Bois Blanc Fm material is mostly platy instead of water-rounded, suggestive of having been quarried. It is actually similar to the lithology of where I was finding those amazing Terataspis parts back in 2020, but likely off that lovely layer by a few feet. Still, Terry was spotted (first two photos), with the first actually continuing more into the rock... That said, these are chert-filled nightmares to prep. Other encounters included the usual phacopidae, Anchiopsis parts, and one eroded axis of a Calymene platys. I may return to the area and explore further, although it is not likely there is too much more to turn up.
A number of other spots were visited that turned out to be non-viable busts, but that is the nature of prospecting. I will try to find time in the next while to post about the Ordovician of Quebec that is far less stingy on trilobites, but I will also be planning to get back into the field again once next week's classes are done. |
Kane Faucher
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February 2024
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