It's A Small World After All
Hello visitors!
Although as I look out my window it looks more like a postcard from Siberia, I'm starting this fossil season a bit early. Deb and I did manage in that very brief thaw in early January to head up to the ever productive and fossiliferous Hungry Hollow in Arkona, Ontario. I came much more prepared this time: I purchased the excellent reprint of Kesling and Chilman's definitive 1975 paleontological classic, Megafossils of the Middle Devonian Silica Formation (thanks to the ever-legendary Crinus (see his site here); Deb got me an excellent set of chisels for xmas that I was just dying to use; I sleuthed about for stratigraphic and lithological studies of the area, from which I prepared a handy "cheat sheet" so that I could focus a bit more on the Widder Formation to snag a few more Greenops.
Well, inasmuch as it was well above zero and snow-free, it was hard going. Nothing in the world like sticky grey-blue shale/clay collecting under your boots while you try not to fall into the river. Deb hung back while I pushed forward with my one main agenda: with two big pails in hand, off I went to extract some large pieces of Widder shale to bring home so that I could crack a few open to satisfy my fossil urges until winter let up. It wasn't easy, since large pieces of the Widder are way up on those cliffs, and it was far too slippery to make it up there safely. Instead, I sifted through the talus at the bottom and found a few decent sized pieces. While we were at it, we scooped some debris from the Hungry Hollow formation for more patient inspection at home.
The other great news is that I just purchased a digital microscope with X75 and X300 magnification. I've been busy snapping pictures all day, just getting the hang of it. I have to say that X300 magnification may be great for snapping closeups of a fly's eye or the fibres in a sweater, but it is a bit too close for fossils as you end up seeing the mineral chunks that make them up instead of the fine detail.
But enough talking about the things I am seeing. Let's show, not tell using this little slideshow. This is just batch one. You'll see trilobites and closeups of tentaculites, etc. I'm just getting the hang of using this neat device. I feel like a kid and want to put everything under the scope!
With any microscope there will be issues with depth of field that only layering software can resolve. For now, consider these my preliminary shots.
Although as I look out my window it looks more like a postcard from Siberia, I'm starting this fossil season a bit early. Deb and I did manage in that very brief thaw in early January to head up to the ever productive and fossiliferous Hungry Hollow in Arkona, Ontario. I came much more prepared this time: I purchased the excellent reprint of Kesling and Chilman's definitive 1975 paleontological classic, Megafossils of the Middle Devonian Silica Formation (thanks to the ever-legendary Crinus (see his site here); Deb got me an excellent set of chisels for xmas that I was just dying to use; I sleuthed about for stratigraphic and lithological studies of the area, from which I prepared a handy "cheat sheet" so that I could focus a bit more on the Widder Formation to snag a few more Greenops.
Well, inasmuch as it was well above zero and snow-free, it was hard going. Nothing in the world like sticky grey-blue shale/clay collecting under your boots while you try not to fall into the river. Deb hung back while I pushed forward with my one main agenda: with two big pails in hand, off I went to extract some large pieces of Widder shale to bring home so that I could crack a few open to satisfy my fossil urges until winter let up. It wasn't easy, since large pieces of the Widder are way up on those cliffs, and it was far too slippery to make it up there safely. Instead, I sifted through the talus at the bottom and found a few decent sized pieces. While we were at it, we scooped some debris from the Hungry Hollow formation for more patient inspection at home.
The other great news is that I just purchased a digital microscope with X75 and X300 magnification. I've been busy snapping pictures all day, just getting the hang of it. I have to say that X300 magnification may be great for snapping closeups of a fly's eye or the fibres in a sweater, but it is a bit too close for fossils as you end up seeing the mineral chunks that make them up instead of the fine detail.
But enough talking about the things I am seeing. Let's show, not tell using this little slideshow. This is just batch one. You'll see trilobites and closeups of tentaculites, etc. I'm just getting the hang of using this neat device. I feel like a kid and want to put everything under the scope!
With any microscope there will be issues with depth of field that only layering software can resolve. For now, consider these my preliminary shots.
And this stuff below is just me goofing around - I mean, practicing - with the new scope.