Nevada - Utah Mega Trip 2016 Day Four: Little Antelope and Hamilton

From the grocery store in Ely, NV, we drove about 40 miles west on US Highway 50 to a turn off to a dirt road.  On the side of this were pieces of limestone containing lots of Eocene gastropods.  Lots.  Sorry I haven't a fossil photo - bright light, white stone, and light colored fossils are a challenge

Gathering to show off what they found.

It didn't take long before we had all we "needed" at this site and we moved on to another site that had a much higher variety of beautiful gastropods.  Some folks also found ostracods.


Nicely exposed outcrop of stone, very densely
 populated with fossils.

 

There are at least a dozen large
brachiopods in this picture.

We had lunch at this gastropod site, then headed on to the Hamilton site.  This is a Pennsylvanian marine site.  Initially, we were all scrabbling through scree, finding a sparse density of brachiopods.  Then Taylor came from across the ravine with specimens that made us all scamper.  It was amazing how many brachiopods were in the layers and loose to find.

The brachiopod layer - it went on for meters!

The final stop for today was in Hamilton, a ghost town.  Hamilton was once the county seat and a silver mining town, with a population of 25,000.  In the late 19th century, two major fires wiped out the structures of the town, leaving it uninhabitable.  For humans anyway.





On the way to visit Hamilton, we passed wild horses!

Exploring one of the few structures standing in Hamilton.

The good days just keep rolling along!

Nevada - Utah Mega Trip 2016 Day Three: Robinson Ranch, Bishop Springs, and Ward Charcoal Kilns

Before I get to this day's log, I wanted to share with you some more pictures from our first day.  Below are three pictures Dennis Gertenbach took of some very nice finds from day one's Crittenden Springs site.

For today's trip, we carpooled to Utah, towards Cowboy Pass.  The air was not clear; like Colorado, there've been fires burning in Nevada.  The wind was up and humidity was down, so smoke blew across mountains and valleys from north Nevada.

Robinson Ranch site

 

The first stop, Robinson Ranch, was in a wide, dry wash, into which Carboniferous brachiopods and solitary corals were carried.

Searching the wash at the Robinson Ranch site

We never became certain of the source rock, though we looked for it.  While searching, I did find some interesting concretions to photograph.  And Dennis found a curious lizard:

Rock art

Click for larger to see Lizzie



Holdfast? and branched solitary coral

There was one side gully that was dubbed Coral Wash, as most of the corals were found there.  One type had branching at a segment line which, according to Patrick, are distinctive to a very few species so we hope to get a good identification of them.  The specimen to the right of this photo is this type of coral.  The other piece in the photo is thought to be the holdfast of a crinoid.







The second stop of the day was also in west Utah, Bishop Springs.  This particular locality was a lone mound in a wide open valley.



Bishop Springs site



An eye-catching concretion

The outcrops were covered with odd, blackened concretions.  The concretion here was the first highly patterned one we passed.













In several places, there were fossils in slabs too big and hard to bring home - beautiful horn
corals, interesting brachiopods, and a lone gastropod.  The brachiopods were on concretions we speculated might have been part of a burrow system.



Coral Slab



Brachiopods (a few I circled) and possible burrows






Gastropod

The slab of horn corals pictured below shows an interesting story of preservation.  Apparently the center of some of these will be replaced differently than the outer portion.  The center is replaced with chert which is harder than the source rock.  As the source rock is worn away, the chert is left exposed.


Interesting preservation of coral

 The final stop of the day was the Ward Charcoal Kilns.  The kilns were used to burn wood into charcoal which was used in local smelters.

Ward Charcoal Kilns

Since I didn't get to this blog last night and am writing this in the morning, the weather has cooled.  I am glad I am in a motel:

Nevada - Utah Mega Trip 2016 Day Two: Garnet Hill and Geology Train

July 9, 2016

We left West Wendover and drove across a couple of different valleys to get to Ely (pronounced "ee-lee"), Nevada.  The original plan was to visit Fossil Mountain for Pennsylvanian corals but the owner of the copper mine acquired claims on that land and closed access to the public.  So, we went to Garnet Hill, instead.

Garnet Hill is in the Ely BLM (Bureau of Land Management) district.  Rhyolite containing garnets of the variety Spessartine is present.  Many of us thought we received presents:



This piece, found by Patrick Rowe, has 10 beautiful
garnets on a stone covered with minute quartz crystals.

Perhaps the largest of the day, Nancy Kimber
found.  What a beautiful piece this is!



 

 The next activity was to ride the Geology Train.  Engine 93, the steam engine of the Geology Train, was built in 1909 to move ore from the copper mine west of Ely to the mill.  We rode it as passengers through geology that include Pennsylvanian and Permian limestone to the ore-bearing strata.  The copper mining operation created huge, multicolored dump piles that surround the producing pits.  This mine is visible using Google Earth.

Engine 93 with a bunch of paleo people in front of it.

Tomorrow, we visit some Mississippian and Ordovician sites.

Nevada - Utah Mega Trip 2016 Day One: Crittenden Springs and Immigrant Canyon

July 7, 2016 - First things first, we all got ourselves to West Wendover, NV.  If you travel via I80, you pass through Salt Lake City then through territory that vies with Kansas for flatness.


Bonneville Salt Flats - home of the world land-speed records race track

July 8, 2016

This day we visited two sites, Crittenden Springs and Immigrant Canyon.

This is normally a dark blue car...

This morning, we met at the Nevada Welcome Center in West Wendover to form a caravan for our first fossil site of this mega-trip, Crittenden Springs.  This meant "drive to Montello, then be prepared for a dusty car as we will drive for another 23 miles, including 8 miles on a road that tracks a part of the old California Trail.  (On this trail, we startled a large, beautiful family of partridges.)









We were to search for Triassic ammonoids - mostly ceratite cephalopods.  Here is a beautiful find by Michael Graham (remember, you can click on the images in this blog to see a larger version):

Our second site of the day was Immigrant Canyon, where we were looking for Permian brachiopods.  It took two tries to find the right spot.  Deep into a canyon west of Montello, NV, we looked for limestone outcrops.  The first stop had limited exposure so Joe's nephew, Taylor, scoped the exact spot.  Thank you Taylor!  We found lots of brachiopods, and they had SPINES!

Slab of small brachiopods with many spines

We also found something we still need to identify - it could by bryozoan, it could be sponge:

What are these? Bryozoan or sponge?

Check in tomorrow for Garnets!

Bear Lake Field Trip 2015 - Day Four: Cambrian Spence Gulch

Once again we met in Paris.  A short drive and a short, steep hike down into a gulch and we were happy!  For this was an exposure of Cambrian Spence Shale.  We hoped for trilobites and hyoliths.  Hyoliths were new to many of us, I think!

Here is an iphone panorama shot of the exposure:

Spence Shale

The picture is a little odd since I was standing so close to the subject.  You can see that there was plenty of room for fossil hunters...

We did find the expected fossils.  There were some exceptional finds, of whole trilobites and of what is likely Eocrinoidea!

I just have to share with you a picture of someone I admire, look up to, want to be like.  Not only did she find some of the best whole trilobites, but she is an octogenarian!!!

Ann, my hero

Ann didn't want to stop digging here but we had another site to go to.  So, she packed up her backpack and bucket of fossils and climbed out of the gulch just like the rest of us.

The final site of the day was a return to the east shore of Bear Lake.  We'd been shut out before by the rain and hail storm.  This afternoon was beautiful; perfect for hunting Pleistocene bivalves and gastropods.

East shore, Bear Lake

The following morning, many of the trip participants had plans - DMNS Field School in Escalante, Yellowstone, head back to work...  A few of us were able to make one more stop, not far from Kemmerer, WY.  This stop was Eocene, and yielded agatized Elimia tenera.

It was a great trip and I am grateful to WIPS and the field trip leaders Joe Dabelko and Dennis Gertenbach for putting this together.

Bear Lake Field Trip 2015 - Day Three: Minnetonka Cave

We watched the sun rise in Paris!

Idaho, that is, in the parking lot of the tabernacle.








From there, we took our caravan to the Minnetonka Cave.  I understand there aren't many known caves in Idaho; this one is a good one!  We don't know how many steps there are in it since we heard 444, 548, and 600+.  It has the columns and features of any normal, healthy cave (stalagmites, stalagtites, columns, bacon, etc.).  Our guide was young and fun.

Just down the road from the cave was a site yielding burrows.  We found some trilobite bits, brachiopods, lots of traces, and a few mysteries that we'll have to get back to for identifying.

Sadly, we couldn't quite collect this slab.

Following this, we went out to find food.  Some of us stopped at campgrounds, which were quite nice along the road to the cave.  We picnicked, then met up to caravan to Paris Canyon.  I was so busy looking for ammonites in the Triassic Thaynes Formation, I forgot to take pictures!

Now, this day was Saturday.  It is culturally sound to have a party.  And Joe and his family know how to do that!  They were at a resort and invited us to burgers and games.  There was good food, company, and prizes.  We all got into playing Fossil Jeopardy, created by Joe.

Team One struggled to regain control

Team Two had the lead

TEAM ONE Won!!!

Bear Lake Field Trip 2015 - Day two: Mississippian

Soda Springs hourly geyser

We had a bonus stop today - we saw the Soda Springs geyser!  This was our morning meeting place.  From there we drove north about 25 miles to Pelican Point Quarry (I haven't heard why it is called this...).  This is an easily-accessed quarry of Mississippian Lodgepole limestone.

The stone is quite hard so you hope to find a piece containing that fossil you want and it is small enough to carry.  Actually, we all had some great finds.  The horn coral can be large and is the main attraction.  Also found were brachiopods, tiny crinoid parts, tabulate corals, and even a blastoid!

Brenda's syringopora tabulate coral

Bob's blastoid

The fossil hunting was so good, many of us underestimated the boxing needed for the day.  Back in Soda Springs Geyser park for lunch, we discussed how to fill that need.  It so happened, there was a nearby container with our answer.

"Dumpster Diving" for boxes

Having filled that need, we moved on to Fossil Canyon, a private drive with more of the Missippian cobbles.  Not so prolific, some did find some nice horn corals.  A couple of folks also found some beautiful stromatolites.

To cap the day, many of us dined at the Ranch Hand.  We ate like ranch hands, for sure!