Dry Dredgers Field Trip
Saturday, September 29, 2001
Route 1, Indiana

Page 1: Pictures from the trip
  Page 2: Pictures from the trip
Page 3: Pictures of some of the fossils found that day.

Perhaps the best find of the day was a beautiful and rare Conularia, found by Bob Bross. Pictured below, Carrie Bross shows both sides of the specimen. Nice going Bob and Carrie!
 
The picture above shows the reverse side of this great Conularia.

Another nice find was this enrolled Isotelus trilobite. I forgot to note who found this one, as well as most of the ones pictured here, so if you'd like your name beside the picture of your specimen, email me (Bill) at billheim@cinci.rr.com.

Quite a few Flexicalymene trilobites were found. The camera had problems, so most of those pictures were lost (brand new JVC miniDV Camcorder!) Pictured below is one incomplete Flexicalymene retrorsa of considerable size found by Jeff Bryant.


The above picture shows three brachiopods found that day. A beginning fossil collector will be thrilled to find such well preserved specimens and then be amazed at how abundant they are on this road cut. A more experienced collector might find them less exciting because they are thought to be so common. An even more experienced collector will again be thrilled at the above three specimens, because each one is uncommon in some way or another.  

 The somewhat flat brachiopod in the above picture looks very much like the ubiquitous Rafinesquina. It seems a bit too big to be a Strophomena and it has fine stratiations like a Rafinesquina. But there is a simple test to tell if this is a Strophomena. Click Here.

Now here is the brachiopod found at the September field trip to Route 1. (Below showing both sides.) Look closely because the pictures are not very good. Can you tell if it is a Strophonema or a Rafinesquina?

 

 Another reason why the seemingly common brachiopods found on this trip are interesting to the experienced eye is the presence of inarticulate brachiopods on their surface, as we see on the Hebertella in the hand above. Inarticulates differ from articulate brachiopods in that their two valves (shells) do not join with a mechanism in a hinge. You often find inarticulate brachiopods attached to articulate brachipods.

One Dry Dredger found the items shown below. These are fragments of the articulate brachiopod Rafinesquina that are covered with the inarticulate brachiopod, Petrocrania scabiosa. Usually, you just find one or two of these "scabby" brachs on a Raf. It is always interesting to find them so covering the Rafinesquina that there are Petrocrania on top of Petrocrania!
 

Here is another variety of inarticulate brachiopod, preserved upside-down by bryozoan and found on the Route 1 field trip.

As shown below, Bryozoans also encrust fragments of articulate brachiopods. Lots of these were found on the trip.

We also saw cases where bryozoans encrusted Pelecypods (clams). Lots of other interesting critters are attached to these clams as well.

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