This year, the Kentucky Paleontological Society and the Dry Dredgers chose September for their annual picnic and joint field trip. The weather was perfect and everyone had a good time. Thanks to the KPS for hosting this year.
The choice this year was a return to Bardstown KY, where we picnic'ed in My Old Kentucky Home State Park.
Picnic Photos
After we eat, Bob Bross gave us an encore presentation of photos from the June New York and Canada field trip. He had presented the photos the night before for those who attended the September meeting.
Then Dan Phelps gave us a briefing of what we will see at the first field trip
stop.
First Site
The first site exposes the Bardstown member of the Drakes formation, which is upper Ordovician. Here we found lots of corals. We also found a few stromatoporoids. Most of the large coral heads were sitting loose waiting to be picked up. Others were acquired by "popping" them out of the hill side.
In addition to the colonial corals shown above, a few solitary corals were found. (next 2 pics).
Here is a nice example found that day of a beautiful stromatoporoid named
Beatricia. (next 3 photos)
Here's another Beatricia.
We also found a second kind of stromatoporoid (name unknown), shown below in this box. (next 2 pics)
A few straight-shelled Nautiloid Cephalopods were also found.
We hit a second site just a short jog from the first, which exposed exactly the same layer.
A number of colonial corals were found loose and in the road cut.
On this site we found more examples of the stromatoporoid Beatricia,
than we did on the previous site. 
And yet another Beatricia stromatoporoid. It was surprising how
many people were finding.
A small number of brachiopods were found. This is in contrast to the large
numbers of brachiopods we find at Richmondian sites of Ohio and Indiana.
Third Site
The third site we visited that day exposed the Silurian. There we armed ourselves with hammers and safety goggles to extract Silurian trilobites from the dolomite.
First, Dan Phelps gave us a briefing on the site, layers and extraction
technique.
Then we got to work.
Here are some of the Gravicalymene trilobites were found that day.
In addition to trilobites, a few crinoid stems were found.
A variety of solitary and colonial corals were found on this site, with very
different preservation to the Ordovician sites we visited that day.
That's all for this trip.
Now lets look at the October field trip to our favorite Northern Kentucky Kope Formation site.
See previous trips to Bardstown, KY
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