In May, the Dry Dredgers returned to the famous Mt. Orab Trilobite farm. We have
not been there since our 2005 trip. This
is a privately owned dig site for which visitation is by unsolicited invitation
only. The Dry Dredgers are privileged and fortunate to have been invited back
for surface collecting. Even though trilobites are extracted from a ditch on
this site, the discard piles over the years weather out, producing good
quantities of trilobites on the surface.
We gathered at the rest stop and proceeded to the secret location. Parking is extremely limited at the site, compared to the number of people who wish to attend, so car pooling to the site was mandatory this time.
Bob did an excellent job of organizing people into
groups by car to get everyone to the site.
Once at the site, parking was still not easy, as these
pictures show, and because the driveway out is blocked by cars, everyone must
stay until everyone is done for the day.
This site exposes the Arnheim Formation, which is at the bottom of the Richmondian Stage. The rocks and fossils on this site are somewhere in the range of 430 to 445 million years old.
Here are some photos of the surface collecting.
Fossils Found That day.
Perhaps the most exciting find was a whole crinoid calyx that
was fragmenting on needed to be carefully extracted from the surface. Here are
some photos of that extraction. The crinoid appears to be either
Pycnocrinus dyeri or a variety of
Glyptocrinus.
Non-Ordovician Fossils
As seems to always be true, we find a few fossils that are not from the Ordovician rocks. Here's one rock that was found in a pile of material that was dumped on the site which has a number of nice non-Ordovician fossils on it.
One one site of the rock is a nice pygidium
(tail section) a non-Cincinnatian trilobite. Near it are parts that are likely
from the same type of trilobite.
On another part of the same rock is a fossil that appears to
be an Edrioasteroid. It might not be that,
however for two reasons. 1-Edrios are only common in the Cincinnatian. They are
found elsewhere, but are rare finds in those cases. 2-The plates do not look
entirely like Edrio plates. This could be a pile of trilobite parts instead.
Trilobite: Isotelus
Prone Flexicalymene retrorsa
Enrolled Flexicalymene retrorsa
Crinoids Found
Pelecypods (bivalves/clams) Found
Caritodens
Ambonychia
Nautiloid Cephalopods Found
Gastropods (snails) Found
Here's a recent snail that was found, showing the coloration.
(not a fossil)
Brachiopods Found
Bryozoans Found
Trace Fossils Found
Now lets move on to the June events around town in which the Dry Dredgers participated.
Here are the previous trips to Mt. Orab.
May 2005
May 2004
May 2003
May 2002
May 2001
Sept. 2000
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