Flexicalymene Trilobite

Here is an Ordovician trilobite I found on a KYANA Geological Society field trip (www.kyanageo.org). My cousin has recently finished sandblasting it to reveal more detail.

The trilobite was called a Flexicalymene from the Ordovician Period. It is approximately 2 cm in length.

Still Finding Trilobites

Here is another trilobite tail I found with an picture of something I am not sure about.

Fossil Hunting After Watermelon Planting

Last Friday, I finally got my watermelons planted in a field in Hodgenville, Kentucky. It is really late but our growing season has been messed up due to cooler weather in April and May.

On my way back to Louisville, I stopped off at Joe Prather highway and looked for fossils.

I found 4 trilobite tails embedded in a some rocks. So I keep my trend alive at find trilobite pieces on my last 6 outings. I thought this trip would end it since the area is not known for trilobites.

Here is a small shell I found but have not identified yet. It might be some type of Athyris brachiopod but I am not sure Devonian fossils are in this area. It would seem to be maybe from the Mississippian Period (Lower Carboniferous) so maybe it is a Beecheria brachiopod.

Here is a pea sized blastoid head which I was surprised to find. It might be a Pentremites from the Mississippian time period.

Another surprising thing about it is that is black in color.

Geology Field Trip to Bedford, Kentucky

Recently, I got to go on a geology field trip to Bedford, Kentucky to collect snails or gastropods. It was fun though it was hot and sunny. Also the weeds were making my allergies flare up. Found lots of neat fossils and here are some pictures of some.

Keeping my streak alive of finding some trilobite piece on my last 5 outings. This trip was extra nice in the the upside down flexicalymene trilobite that is about 50% there. Also found at least 5 other trilobite pieces.

On the way back home, the fire department of Bedford was collecting money at the stop light for the WHAS Crusade for Children so I gave the firefighter some money. His face was really red I assumed from being out in the sun for hours and hours so I gave him the rest of my 50 level sunblock. I hope he was able to use it because that looked like quite a sunburn. The sunblock packet came from the Louisville Mayor's ride so it was good I could pay it forward with them giving it to me and I able to give to someone else.

Trilobite Segment and Gastropod from Bardstown Roadcut

The opportunity arose for me to search for fossils last week for about 30 minutes and I found some nice specimens.

The first is a large gastropod (or snail) that is pretty much intact. It has a nice spiral and is 2.5 cm in diameter and about 2 cm high.

The site I visited in Mt. Washington, Kentucky is Ordovician time period known for gastropods, brachiopods, and cephalopods. I was trying to find cephalopods and picked up a rock that looked the shape but was very muddy and caked with limestone debris. After cleaning it later, I was surprised to find the back segment of a trilobite about 1 cm in length and 0.75 cm in width.

Trilobite Heads from Speed Quarry, Indiana

My cousin found these trilobite pieces at the April 19, 2008 KYANA field trip to Speed Quarry.

More Trilobites

My cousin was on the April 19th KYANA field trip to the Speed Indiana Quarry as well and really went after trilobites. He found about 9-11 trilobite parts. Here are some pictures I took of some of this finds.

Trilobites From Speed, Indiana

I was able to find two trilobite heads and a tail at the last KYANA geological society field trip keeping my streak alive at finding trilobites on the last 3 trips out.

These trilobite heads were found at the Essroc Quarry in Speed, Indiana from probably Jeffersonville Limestone formed in the Middle Devonian period. They are phacops trilobites and I would guess since it is only their head, a molt.

More Fossils

Yesterday with the nice weather, took the opportunity to hunt for fossils it was a great trip. I found my first blastoid (see second picture). Very nice horn corals were found and I found another trilobite but only half of one this time.

I will post some more pictures once I them processed.

More Fossils

Here is a rock with a fragment of a trilobite tail in it.


Here is rugose horn coral that I cut the end off with a diamond saw so it ring pattern would show up better. I then started to polish it with high grit sandpaper.

Trilobite FOUND!

This morning I went on my first field trip with the KYANA Geological Society (http://www.kyanageo.org). They are very nice people and we visited a road cut on Bardstown Road in Bullitt County, Kentucky. The site had a lot of brachiopods and I found about 35 fully intact ones. I also found 13 pieces of cephalopods, bryozoans, gastropods, quartz, and pyrite.

My BIG find of the day was a almost fully intact trilobite! I was getting ready to leave and looked out the outcrop near the vehicles. We were examining the rock across the road so no one was really looking at the smaller group of rock. I was finding some nice very small fossils with good detail since I was so close to the rock area and the rains had washed off the rocks well. I looked some more in the area around where I found this one but did not spot anymore pieces.

Another Rugosa Coral Drawing

Here is another drawing though I am not getting the tenticles looking very 3-D. One change over past drawings is the additional creatures in the picture with the main fossil creature.

Catch a Trilobite By the Tail

I found a trilobite tail on Sunday but it is only about 0.3 inch or 1 cm wide though.

IUS Fossil Collection

Indiana University Southeast (IUS) has a small geology department. Located in the hallway of this department are several glass and wood display cases for fossils and minerals. I was able to take some pictures of the trilobite and crinoid fossils.

The pictures were taken though a glass enclosed case, no tripod, and the flash was turned off so keep that in mind when judging quality.

Fossils

Dorms are being built on the Indiana University Southeast (IUS) toward the back of campus. Behind one of the administration buildings there are some large boulders they have piled up. They might be limestone but they contain different fossils. Here is the close up of one of the surfaces that contain a snail (right side of picture) and coral branch (left side of picture).


Here is a trilobite tail I found in a quarry in Jeffersonville while in geology class. It broke apart when I was cleaning it so I glued it back together. This must have been a large trilobite if this is just the tip of its tail.

Sketch of some fossil creatures

I need to sketch every day to improve my skill in this department. One thing I decided to try to sketch are the creatures I find fossils of. The first image is my attempt at a sea lily. The scanner took some of the drawing away but it also showed that I need to darken parts of the stem to make them stand out more.

This second image is of a trilobite that was drawn on newsprint. This paper type explains the background color around the drawing. I was drawing as I envisioned after looking at part of a fossil I have in a rock. So the creature is far from being correct but I think it looks neat.

Trilobites in Louisville

After finding a trilobite imprint in a rock I dug up, my cousin recommended I start breaking the rock apart to see if there were any more. Sure enough, another one appeared that had been partial sheared off. I then tried extract more of it from the rock which worked pretty well. At that point I should have taken a picture but instead I started to try and break that part of the rock away from the main section. When I was hitting on the rock, the force of the impact caused the tail and part of the center of its back to break away thus leaving the image shown below. The rock is like a mudstone and crumbles very easily.

After publishing this post earlier, I did some more research and found that trilobites are arthropods. Their bodies are divided into three sections: cephalon, thorax, and phygidium. In the picture below, I labeled part of the spine breaking away but that was the thorax. They do have spines but in the sense of pointed parts that stick out to fend off predators.



The Trilobite imprint below has been further revealed after using a small awl and hammer to remove pieces of it. It looks like this relatively large trilobite was squished and twisted when it got buried in this mud. I will need to get ruler next to them next time I take a picture.

Part of Trilobite found in the Ohio River Valley. I have only found 3-4 of these. The only whole I found was rolled up.