by Craig Tipton

The June 23rd field trip was to the Penn Dixie Site near Hamburg, New York.  It was a nearly perfect day to collect at Penn Dixie as the weather was cool and sunny all day.  The Cincinnati Dry Dredgers were also having a field trip to the site and were already working a shale outcrop when I arrived at about 9:45 in the morning.   Jerry Bastedo was there and running the site that day.  I must admit that the Cincinnati folks had brought better tools than I as they had sledge hammers, large chisels, and pry bars.  These tools were especially helpful in removing larger slabs of the hard shale where many of the trilobites, corals, and other fossils could be found.  I used my 3 pound brick hammer and a large chisel and spent a lot more energy and got a sore arm, but was able to remove several large chunks of shale.  Perfect trilobites were hard to come by.  One first time visitor and college student found two nice outstretched phacops.  I found a nice disarticulated one outstretched with the cephalon beside the complete body.  I also found a nearly perfect large outstretched phacops, but the trilobite disintegrated and I was only able to collect the negative.   Small rollers were more easily found.  Corals and brachiopods were plentiful, and I found a Platyceras type gastropod.  After spending 6 hours collecting, I left with two 5 gallon buckets of finds to go through in more detail.

Penn Dixie Entry Sign

Craig searching the shale

Phacops negative in matrix with tail

Dry Dredgers pry up a slab

Student finds