Fieldtrip
Reports
2007 is
off and running!
Field Trip Report for 28
January 2007.
By Wm. Terry Nesbit
On the 28th of January the
Central Penn Rock and Mineral Club had their first Field Trip
of 2007. For those who did not come out, the weather was
partly cloudy with temperatures between 38 and 40 degrees.
There was not any snow on the ground or covering any of the
fossil collecting sites. We had 8 individuals on this fossil
hunt.
We visited two sites in the
Middle Ordovician time period, about 450 million years old.
The first site, is 2.2 miles west of Kaufman, PA, along the
roadbed of the former Pennsylvania Railroad's Richmond Furnace
Branch, on the North side of the county road. There is a rock
cut, which runs for about 750 feet. This rock cut is filled
with posion oak and ivy, has a deer trail running up the
center of the old roadbed, has many places for snakes to come
out and greet the unwary fossil hunter, and is only suitable
to hunt for fossils during the winter months. This property
is now owned by the Wind Swept Acres Farm, who gave us
permission to collect fossils on this Sunday afternoon. For
those of you who have a copy of Pennsylvania's General Geology
Report 40, from 1964, this is listed as site 28. The fossils
found here are in the Mercersburg and Shippensburg formations
of limestone. We found examples of the Brachiopod Dalmanella
and Leptaena, two incomplete Trilobites Calyptaulax one which
was over 2 inches in size, as well as many examples of
Rhombotrypa. Mixed in this limestone are some fine single
terminated clear quartz crystals, filling vugs.
The second site is a posted
commercial shale pit in the Martinsburg Formation located just
south of Chambersburg and west of RT 11. Here we found many
examples of the Graptholithina Climacograptus. Don Kauffman
found a fossil here, measuring well over 16 inches in length,
which I have never seen before. Don, says he will bring it to
a future club meeting, perhaps someone can identify his fossil
find.
