So I've returned numerous times to my new spot, but have not had the same level of success as my first two outings. I now have a ludicrous amount of Crassiproetus pygidia, but nothing complete and not even a whisper of another Terataspis. If all this material is indeed Bois Blanc Formation, I do find it curious that I haven't yet encountered even a tiny fragment of the dalmanitid Anchiopsis anchiops, which is fairly abundant in that formation. That may be attributable to the specific paleoenvironment in which these were deposited, just as one may encounter trout in one part of a river, but not in a smaller river nearby. I've been able to identify six distinct types of rock at the site, with only one of those being trilobite bearing. I'll be giving the spot a bit of a rest for the time being while I focus on other projects (and get back to teaching). I've two illustrations -- one complete, and the other in process -- that I can reveal in the next while. For now, I want to discuss this: Seasoned trilobite collectors in Ontario are very familiar with this text, a veritable bible put together by the masterful Rolf Ludvigsen who passed away in December, 2016. He was an intellectual giant, a taskmaster, and an exacting top tier scholar. This book was published in 1979, and a lot has changed in Ontario trilobite knowledge since then: the genus Phacops in North America was reassigned to Eldredgeops, the great Bill Hessin formally described the cheirurid Leviceraurus mammiloides, Lieberman and Kloc reassigned Neometacanthus to Bellacartwrightia jennyae, and even humble amateurs like myself have put in tireless efforts in finding some trilobites that haven't been reported in over a century.
The state of fossil collecting in Ontario is mixed. With more site closures, places getting tapped out, suburban sprawl, areas now under provincial park designation, and other issues all too common in many parts of the world, the halcyon days are certainly over. Of course, the undaunted die-hards like myself will continue trying to locate new spots, to dig deeper and farther in unlikely locations, even if they are small and quickly exhausted. I do think it is time to honour Ludvigsen's project in revising this text. Of course, that is a matter of expertise, time, and money. There is not a tremendous amount of research interest in such a niche project. That being said, some small and remarkable steps have already been taken. For example, Philip Isotalo's book on Ordovician trilobites of Ontario is exactly the kind of enterprise that we need more of. Bill Hessin's invaluable field guide to southern Ontario fossils has also quickly become a kind of bible for collectors in the GTA and surrounds. There is still so much more work to do, and sometimes I regret not specializing in this field when I entered university. We still do not have a formal description of the Cobourg Fm Isotelus "mafritzae", which should be a top priority housekeeping item. I can only do so much on my own given my limitations. I'm not a paleontologist, I do not have access to the granting structure. What I do have is the passion and energy. If someone reached out to me and asked if I wanted to play even a tiny role in revising Ludvigsen's text, I would very much take to it like a duck to water. So, to that end, I've been combing through the literature to create a kind of "master list" of Devonian bugs in Ontario. There are plenty of known unknowns. There are species that should technically be found here by stratigraphic correlation, but have not been confirmed. I'm providing my list, a work in progress. I've been fortunate (and stubborn enough) to find examples of 15 of the roughly 25 species found in Ontario. If you are a trilobite worker in Ontario reading this, I'm more than willing to put in the work needed to revise the Ludvigsen text. We've already seen the resurrection of another of Rolf's projects courtesy of Fred Sundberg in the form of the rebooted Trilobite Papers. It is a major ask for a major task, especially when we have yet to even see the second volume of the Treatise! But there are so many tireless trilobite workers out there today whose efforts are on par with the greats of yesteryear, such as Jonathan Adrain, Gerd Geyer, Richard Fortey, Joan Corbacho, Gerald Kloc -- just to name a few. So here is my list so far. My thanks to the indefatigable efforts of Scott Morrison as the true trilo-lit archivist par excellence for putting key documents in my hand. I hope this list assists our collectors -- professional and avocational. Kettle Point/Ipperwash Eldredgeops rana Widder (upper) Greenops widderensis Eldredgeops rana Pseudodechenella ?rowi / ?arkonensis Dipleura dekayi Crassiproetus canadensis Bellacartwrightia jennyae Widder (Hungry Hollow) Greenops widderensis Eldredgeops rana Eldredgeops iowensis southworthi Pseudodechenella arkonensis Crassiproetus canadensis Arkona Stummiana arkonensis Eldredgeops rana Pseudodechenella Dundee Coronura aspectans Coronura myrmecophorus Trypaulites calypso Crassiproetus crassimarginatus Crassiproetus sibleyensis* (corr. Michigan) Eldredgeops rana Pseudodechenella planimarginata Pseudodechenella nodosa* (corr. Ohio) “Proetus rowi” Odontocephalus selenurus (?) Lucas Crassiproetus crassimarginatus Amherstburg Acanthopyge contusa Mannopyge Halli Mystrocephala stummi Crassiproetus crassimarginatus Harpidella sp. Coniproetus folliceps (corr. NY) Bois Blanc Terataspis grandis Anchiopsis anchiops Burtonops cristata Crassiproetus crassimarginatus Pseudodechenella delphinula Otarion sp. Calymene platys Trypaulites erinus It's not often that one can find a trove of fossils within one's vicinity-- in my case, within walking distance of my house. So time to spin a yarn and show some pictures. There's a spot I've been returning to for going on six years now, and it has been pretty good to me in giving up its treasures. Nearly all of its material was trucked in, including rocks from the Bois Blanc, Amherstberg, and Dundee Formations. Of course, it stopped being productive by end of last year, and although it is provided me with fantastic pieces of trilobites such as Anchiopsis anchiops, Mannopgye halli, and Odontocephalus sp., among others, it's pretty much tapped out, with some areas being too overgrown now. Nothing left but splinters, mud, weeds, and dirt. Still, I tried to give it a few more chances in the case of weathering or new material being trucked in. Nope. I've found nothing of interest there all year, so pretty much stopped going. Nearby, however, is a different story. My new honey hole is also trucked in material -- too poor to make cement, so it is used as riprap / fill -- and there is a lot of it. Perhaps so much it may take me a very long while to tap it out. Initially I thought it might be local Dundee Fm, and/or Lucas Fm (Anderdon Member) due to the sandy facies. Now, I think it may actually be Bois Blanc material. So I've done about two half-days of recon and prospecting to get a handle on the site and material rather than do a systematic all-day dig. This stuff, pending rock type, can be dense, dirty, fragile, brutally hard, blank, or ridiculously fossiliferous. There are massive dome-like corals amidst smaller corals of all kinds, but in some layers bryozoans dominate. And these are some of the medium sized ones! When I started poking around, I thought to myself that it was just a resigned end-of-visit tapping of a few boring rocks. And then I started encountering some familiar matrix, but loaded with these rostroconch. And then a few nautiloid/ammonoids started appearing, too. But the really exciting trip-maker that turned around my whole day, and has rekindled my interest in taking some walks outside my house is this: Yes, a basically complete (I'll know for sure with prep) Pseudodechenella sp. Not sure of the species just as yet. Finding these, or their byrozoan/coral thicket-mate Crassiproetus, complete is far from common. After finding this proetid, I gawped at it for a good few minutes, shocked by my dumb luck! After, I started finding plenty of pygidia and other fragments. That brings me to the end of day one. On to day two. I needed to recalibrate my expectations so as not to think full trilobites would be popping out of every rock. I was right: I did not find a full trilobite, but something no less sensational. But here's a tour of some of the other finds first. A whole lot of sea bed goodness. Gastropalooza! Long and branching. This amounts to a hill of b...ryozoans. More Crassiproetus pygidia. Not pictured yet is a fairly large one (about the size of a silver dollar for those who remember what those look like). But enough delay. The find of the day, and perhaps the week, month, or year, would be this unattractive fragment: UPDATE: Despite the very similar morphology, I came to the realization that this is not a Terataspis, but more likely a match with Echinolichas. Just returned last night from three heavy days of digging at Penn Dixie. My friend Malcolm and I likely cleared about 1500 square feet of area, working sun up to sun down. As Deb had to work, and I don't drive, it meant taking a train to a station en route to the border, with Malcolm picking me up along the way. Just getting started. A lot of the place has been peeled back, or otherwise under a heavy load of overburden. At this rate of excavation, the trilobite pit is already starting to encroach on the westernmost area near the nature path. As there were no easy benches, we had to create them. The next morning. As is usual for us crazy canucks, we work steadily in cracking out large slabs for about half the day, and then spend the remainder splitting them. This was what we left from the evening before, and then it was the same process again for almost 12 hours. We encountered a number of challenges. The rock was extremely dense and dry without the benefit of being saturated in water to facilitate bedding plane cracks. This meant our splits would more likely shatter rather than split through along any planes. A few potentially nice bugs were sheared through or shattered on account of the nature of the matrix. Also, cross-bedding made unlocking the slabs more difficult and time consuming, if not also a network of awkward (and sadly blank) domes underneath the layer. And yet another point on day 2 after removing some slabs for splitting. Here I am trying to lever out a stubborn slab with a small pry bar, with a pinch point bar to my right to keep the crack wedged open on a secondary slab. Sometimes a loose slab would be connected to adjacent ones, and so requires a bit of persistence and power to lift them all out in one go. We don't fool around. As members, we can access the site after public hours, and that is when we fire up the rock saw. Here we are scoring relief cuts in the very cross-bedded material. This nice little prone popped right out of the rock intact. Prones come at a higher premium than the much more common rollers. Just a small selection of the finds. We didn't do badly, but we've had better results in the past. The nature of the rock and area was a bit on the parsimonious side. And yet we still came away with quite a few trilobites. As I was taking the train back, I could only stow a few pieces (shown here) in my luggage; Malcolm will be passing through in a few weeks with a whole 5 gallon bucket of my finds. There is no doubt I could have come away with three times as much, but I was being far pickier in tossing away stuff that was incomplete or had no chance to be excellent. I'm really just trying to harvest enough prep material for the winter. The number of partials/incompletes we encountered probably number into the thousands. These two pieces show some promise. The little slab with the three-quarter profile will likely have some crush and distortion damage on its hidden side. The loose prone is missing a bit of pygidium that I can restore with a bit of milliput. Some other promising candidates that might lend themselves to some fancy prep.
Overall, despite some limitations, our hard work forced the stubborn rocks to give up whatever treasures it had. It's a challenge to sustain that effort over three days, and I can certainly feel the after-effects of it all today. I will try to get back to PD one more time this year just to beef up my winter prep inventory. I likely have another trip or two to Arkona to look forward to, and the autumn Bowmanville trip which will signal the close for the collecting season. In an effort to turn the collecting season around (which, on balance, hasn't been bad), I managed to get out to Arkona three times in the last seven days, each one with a different field companion (Deb, Malcolm, Greg). We worked the Hungry Hollow Member almost exclusively. Those who have made that 2-4 feet of strata understand how frustrating it can be to work in: generally crumbly, dirty, virtually no bedding planes, and so filled with coral that if you never see horn coral again that would be too soon! This is generally the kind of stuff one has to go through. It is quite dominated by coral, but there are shaly pockets where crinoids, bryozoans, brachiopods, gastropods, blastoids, and trilobites can be found. However, it is also a bit of a shredder: only the hardiest specimens remained intact in this high energy environment, so bits and pieces are the norm... when you can see them, as this stuff is pretty dirty. I did stray briefly to the hard encrinal layer that the Hungry Hollow sits on. Again, no bedding planes, but also brutally hard. Most of what can be found will be shattered through, or a steinkern. Perseverance can be rewarding in finding huge brachiopods, and nicely inflated trilobites (I've only ever seen partials in this layer). Pictured above is just an example I left in the field of a very large Eldredgeops rana glabella. Apologies for the rubbish photo as this hardly does justice to these (particularly the one on the upper right). On one of the days, it was Crassiproetus canadensis city. It seemed I pulled a pygidium every few minutes. Most are in pretty poor shape, which is the norm for Hungry hollow. Again, the complete specimen eluded us, but this was by far the most examples of this species I've ever collected in one trip. I should state that all of these are pretty much field fresh, and I won't be prepping them for a while as I need to build up my stores for the long winter. But if one looks closely at this plate, there are three Crassiproetus pygidia (two on the upper right, one on the lower left) plus another fragment. A bit challenging to make out, but near the bottom is another Crassiproetus pygidium that I kept on account of its massive size. Sadly, it's halfway to steinkern. A first for me in the Hungry Hollow: carbonized wood bits. Having found these as well placoderm bits this year mark two firsts as these are more likely to be found upstairs in the Widder. In the middle is more Spinplatyceras gastropods, and a few more Crassiproetus pygidia at the bottom. This was from the hard encrinal layer -- a giant Spinplatyceras. Much of the shell is gone, sadly. When tabulate/colonial coral appears in the Hungry Hollow, they can get up to the size of wagon wheels. I did extract this one as a matter of circumstance, and it is much larger than how it appears here. The other coral piece in the foreground belongs to it. As I already have an example of this monster coral, I left it in the field rather than lug it back. Other stuff from my Arkona trip bucket. The middle trilobite at the top (Eldredgeops rana) is indeed complete as I can see on the other side of its crushed/folded nature. On its left is a headless rana, and on the right a pygidium of Pseudochenella. On the right of that is a big brach and a coral. Everything else is Spinplatyceras with the heartbreaking exception of the lowest right -- likely a Pseudodechenella with poor preservation and more steinkern than fossil. This was the tripmaker: the cephalon of an Eldredgeops iowensis southworthi. Of the five reported trilobite species in the Hungry Hollow, this one is the rarest. It is rumoured that less than 100 of them (almost all fragments) have ever been found, and that the holotype is a single cephalon. I do know someone who did find a complete enrolled one. Complete, this one would have measured possibly more than 10 cm long. It can be distinguished from the ordinary Eldredgeops rana by the number of dorso-ventral eye lenses, but more obviously by its excessively tuberculate shell. In other words, far "bumpier" than a rana. This would make the second example of this species I've found in the last five years, with a third one purchased from a fellow collector.
I've put it through about ten minutes of abrasion, and it still needs far more prep. I almost didn't see it, as its initial state was like much of the Hungry Hollow: dirty and uniform in appearance. All I saw was a bit of a bump, which more often than not means yet another coral. But I spied some little dots poking through, which is suggestive of tubercles. I'm glad I took the chance to bring it home! There may be so little left of summer before work pulls me away, but I do have some trip plans I'm waiting to finalize. This may not be the last post before autumn! There just hasn't been any time or opportunity to get out collecting in the last while, and summer is winding down. And, without much material to prep, that leaves me taking up the pencils. This one doesn't look as impressive as my usual output as it has a kind of cartoonish appearance. However, that could also be on account of the lighting. It is always a challenge to photograph pencil drawings. In person, this drawing is a bit darker as opposed to washed out as it appears here. This took me a ridiculously long time to complete despite the apparent simplicity of the body plan. When drawing darker trilobites, one of the unavoidable issues is how repeated cycles of layering and blending removes the tooth from the page, making any subsequent work nearly impossible. A Fossil Forum member suggested I give drawing a Tumido a try. Having never drawn a crab before, I thought I'd give it a go. I initially had a Dalmanites limulurus lined up for drawing, but the crab butted in. I still do plan on returning to the trilobites in the next while.
But each one is now a huge time commitment. What used to take two hours now spans 12+ hours over a few days as attention to detail and quality of rendering require a much longer stretch of time. Hopefully the results speak for themselves. Once I finish a drawing, it doesn't go up on a wall or anything -- I just stick in a plastic sleeve and park it in a three ring binder. I am hoping to get them all scanned, printed, and bound once I have a sizeable number of drawings. But, in all honesty, I really need to get out and break some rock. This collecting season has been pretty light, and I worry I won't have enough material for the winter!! |
Kane Faucher
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February 2024
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