Photos by Bill Heimbrock
For the October field trip, the Dry Dredgers went to the big road cut in southern Indiana which exposes the entire Fairview formation. We last visited this site in May 2015.
It was a medium rain until noon. Everyone collected fossils in the rain. We found some nice fossils, including some nice cephalopods. Perhaps the real story is that 9 people came to this field trip despite the fact that it was raining since dawn and forecasted to get up to 2 inches. The attending, which included new members, were not willing to give up the last fossil hunt of 2019 because of a little rain. One member drove down from Columbus. My highest commendations go out to these intrepid Dry Dredgers!
Fossils Found That Day
Cephalopods
Here’s a nice find. This straight-shelled nautiloid had the orthocone chambers preserved in brown calcite with the siphuncle visible. The shell was encrusted with the interesting bryozoan, Spatiopora sp.
The wet conditions allowed the brownish color of the calcite to stand out against the grew shale. Here are some of the other cephalopods found.
One member saw a cephalopod on the edge of a slab and was able
to pry the layer open with his geology hammer. (next 2 pics)
Bryozoans
We found some nice
Constellaria sp.
colonies. These are bryozoans with star-shaped monticules. (next 2 pics)
At road level, most of the slabs we saw were nearly covered in
a variety of bryozoan shapes and sizes. (next 6 pics).
Bivalves (clams)
Bivalves
were also found. Here's a nice internal mold on the surface of a rock with black
and brown coloring that might have microstructure from the original shell.
Crinoids
We didn't find any crinoid
calyxes (heads). But we did find plenty of slabs that were loaded with
stems and individual stem columnals.
Gastropods
Snails were not the most common fossils on this site, but enough to represent the common species.
This first one is a gastropod called
Cyclonema.
Here is an internal mold of
Paupospira sp.
Brachiopods
As is true for most Cincinnati area sites, there were many
varieties of brachiopods. This first one very tiny but extremely abundant. It's
Zygospira
cincinnatiensis.
In certain layers, the brachiopod
Cincinnetina multisecta
covered the surfaces of slabs.
And Vinlandostrophia
sp. were fairly common. Some of these were
Vinlandostrophia hopensis
(next 3 pics).
That's all for this trip. The Novel Coronavirus pandemic hit after this and caused us to need to skip the March, April and May field trips. But by September 2020, we had learned how to use social distancing and face masks to minimize the incident of the deadly virus and was able to have a successful September field trip to the large road cut in Southeast Indiana. Check out the pictures!
See our previous trip to this Fairview Formation site in Indiana.
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