I have an air abrasive unit, so I was able to prepare the ones I found under microscope. While economical and efficient this tends to remove some of the surface detail from the trilobites. Typically at the quarry for their commercial collecting operations they prepared them using a wire brush on a grinding wheel. Most of thee trilobites I found at U-Dig still needed to be prepared as there was still rock on top of them obscuring much of the detailed shell. Nothing I would consider rare, but still a nice little haul. My keepers were about two dozen Elrathia, three good Asaphiscus including one close to 2 inches, and several multiple plates of smaller trilobites. I kept the best specimens leaving the remainder scattered in piles around quarry for kids to find. By the end of the day I had quite a pile to sort through. I split shale for five or six hours straight without taking a break, challenging myself to see how many trilobites I could find in the day. Then watch as they run back to their parents with a big smile on their face to show off their find. It’s fun to place a nice big trilobite face up on a rock and mention, “you should try digging over there”.
One of my favorite things about digging at U-Dig is “seeding” the quarry for any kids that might be digging nearby. Occasionally a nice big 2 inch long Asaphiscus will be found, but that is a real prize. Most of the trilobites at U-Dig are relatively small, under an inch. A trilobite molt can be identified because it’s missing sections on the side of each head typically referred to as “free cheeks”.
Like lobsters, trilobites molted as they grew, discarding their old shell. Most of the trilobites that you find are molts. Nearly every split at least yielded parts of trilobites and it wasn’t long before I was finding complete Elrathia, the most common trilobite in the quarry.
#UDIG FOSSIL CRACK#
crack hammer would typical split these blocks pretty easily. Breaking the larger blocks was the most efficient way for me to see a lot of surface area with the least effort, and have the best chance at getting largest trilobites centered on a nice piece of rock or finding multiple plates. I preferred to go for the large blocks of shale, often covered in hammer marks from other people who’d tried to split them and given up. I decided to spend my time break down some of the larger blocks and see how many trilobites I could find. It also meant there were plenty of big blocks of shale in the quarry that had been recently pulled out with the backhoe. On a summer weekend day the place will often be packed with dozens of people. I arrived at the quarry on what happened to be their opening day for the season so there were only about ten people at the quarry. There is also a rare, burgess shale like, soft bodied fauna in certain layers of the quarry but it really takes a trained eye to identify it, as to most people it just looks like a black stain on a black rock. Besides the trilobites there are a number of other fossils including brachiopods, algae and phyllocarids. Only a handful of complete Altiocullus at the quarry in a season and a complete Olenoides only shows up once every few years. There are two rare types of trilobites found in the quarry Altiocullus (2 species) and Olenoides (2 species).
If you spend a few hours splitting rock at the quarry and have a sharp eye you’re more than likely going to see all four of those. There are 4 species of trilobites commonly found at the quarry Elrathia kingii, Asaphiscus wheeleri, Bolspidella housensis and Peronopsis interstrictus. U-Dig is located in a particularly fossiliferous section of the Middle Cambrian (505 million years old) Wheeler Shale. Plus, I was basically guaranteed to find some complete trilobites even if they were just common species. I decided that take a day off and “rest” by visiting U-Dig to split some nice soft shale. I had been going on three or four days straight of not finding a decent complete trilobite, so not only was my body feeling a bit worn out, but I was getting pretty frustrated. The process involved days of moving heavy overburden and cracking hard limestone with a sledgehammer. For a hourly fee, they supply tools, helpful guidance, unlimited rock to split and you get to keep everything you find.įor the previous week I had been in search of rare trilobites in the deserts of Utah and Nevada. It’s a great place for pretty much anybody to find their own fossils including families, kids and people who’ve never collected a fossil. I dug my first trilobite there more than 15 years ago, and countless others have been introduced to the world of fossil collecting at U-Dig. It contains one of the most prolific trilobite assemblages in the world. U-Dig ( a private, fee-dig trilobite quarry near Delta, Utah.
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