Day 2 of 8: White Mound should be called Brachipods Galore

We weren't sure what we'd find at White Mound, OK.  In the past, it was largely famous for trilobites, those little ancient bug-like critters.  White Mound is a privately owned ranch that you pay to enter.  We drove about three hours from Wichita to get there, with a lunch stop just off I-35. 

The day was cloudy and very windy and just warm enough to get by with long sleeves.  The two track onto the ranch wasn't bad except in one spot with water of unknown depth. 






I can tell you, though, that no sooner than the car engines are off, there were people with their noses to the ground looking for fossils.  See below?  That's Lorrie McWhinney and Dennis Gertenbach.  Way in the background you see that little white spec back by the trees?  I think that's Bob Landgraf's hat...

 

We found at least a half dozen different species of brachiopod.  We haven't identified them all but Dennis says one species we found was Meristella atoka.  We also found gastropods, rugose and tabulate corals, crinoid stems, and possibly a couple of nautiloids.  As always, there are a handful of those "what is that?" fossils we'll have to dig to identify.



There were a few trilobites to be found and several trilobite body parts.  The few whole, or mostly whole ones were likely Kainops invius.  I know I saw a couple of Huntonia pygidiums.  Here are a couple of the Kainops:

 



We finally dragged ourselves away at Dennis' promise we'd go down a highway reputed to have great road cuts.  We're still hoping to find great roadcuts.  We did find a fun place to eat.

It really is called "Two Frogs"!  Their cuisine has a Cajun influence and was quite good.  We had a fun time recounting moments of the day.