Dating back to ~2003, a small group of Dry Dredgers has volunteered for the annual Dig with the Experts at the Penn Dixie site. This year was no exception.
For those not familiar with the site, the Penn Dixie Fossil Park is located in Hamburg, NY. (Visit www.penndixie.org for more information.) The Hamburg Natural History Society oversees the locality. Founded in 1993, the park is unique in that visitors are permitted to collect — and keep — all the fossils that they find!
Sign outside gate at Penn Dixie site.
The specimens are Devonian (Windom Shale). A large diversity of material is found: abundant brachiopods and horn corals; occasional gastropods, cephalopods, ammonoids, crinoids, blastoids, plants, etc. But the most popular are the trilobites: Phacops (Eldregeops), and more rarely Greenops and Bellacartwrightia. And even more rarely seen is Dechenella. All are typically black against the grayish matrix. Here are two examples of Phacops found on previous Digs.
Enrolled Phacops from Penn Dixie (approximately the diameter of a quarter).
Prone Phacops from Penn Dixie (specimen is 2 inches in length).
The annual Dig with the Experts is held in May. An excavator removes the over-burden to expose the fossil-bearing layer. Some collectors prefer to dig up their own blocks of rock in the pit for splitting. But most who register for the Dig take advantage of the blocks of rock that are pulled up by the excavator and placed in piles on the ground surrounding the pit.
Penn Dixie Dig with the Experts in May 2017.
Experts (those with extensive experience collecting the site) demonstrate splitting the rock, identifying what has been found, and trimming down rocks with concrete saws to more portable sizes. This year, Bob Schacht and I were the Experts, along with the knowledgeable Penn Dixie staff. The number of diggers participing this year was huge: over 200! And in contrast to most years, it was a 2-day event, rather than just one. But there were plenty of blocks of shale available for splitting. And many of the Saturday collectors returned to split more rock on Sunday.
An expert using a rock saw to reduce the size of a Phacops-bearing block of rock during the Dig.
The experts also got to collect. While the Dig lasted two days (May 27-28), Bob and I were there for 5. I prefer to dig up my own blocks of shale so as not to deplete the piles prepared for the Dig. One of my finds was a 2-inch Phacops.
Phacops as found by splitting the shale. Specimen is 2 inches long.
For the Dig this year, special THANKS go to Phil Stokes (Penn Dixie Executive Director), his great staff, and Dan Cooper for directing the excavation two weeks prior to the Dig.
The Dry Dredgers will be visiting Penn Dixie in June for a club field trip. In addition to that, you might want to consider becoming a PD member so that you can visit throughout the collecting season.
Enjoy!
Don Bissett
A long-time member of the Dry Dredgers, I’ve been collecting fossils ever since moving to Cincinnati in 1975 to work at P&G. I was introduced to fossil collecting by Bruce Gibson, another Dry Dredger and co-worker at P&G. Shortly after that, I met Dredger Dan Cooper. Both of them taught me a lot about the hobby. Ever since, I’ve been hooked on fossils.
My primary focus is collecting trilobites and echinoderms, though I often find myself accumulating a much wider assortment of fossils. Beyond the collecting hobby, I’ve also had the opportunity to work with professional paleontologists – extremely rewarding experiences. Some of those have been described in Dry Dredger Bulletin articles, MAPS (Mid-American Paleontology Society) articles, and technical publications. I plan to share more about collecting and professional interactions in my blog posts.
Latest posts by Don Bissett (see all)
- Massie Shale Calymene - January 4, 2021
- Mississippian starfish - November 13, 2020
- Walcott-Rust Starfish - October 25, 2020
- Spathacalymene - September 20, 2020
- Penn Dixie Dig with the Experts 2018 - May 27, 2018
I can not tell you how much fun we had at this event. We were so busy finding fossils that we never even made it to talk to anyone or introduce ourselves. I had planned a trip to Niagara the previous year and when I found out the dig was at the same time we were there, we live on the coast in Texas, I was so excited! We brought our nephew from Ohio with us and he had just as much fun as we did. Thanks again for helping, it was great getting our fossils identified on the spot. We will be returning to the Dayton area every year and look forward to finally meeting ya’ll and maybe even making a field trip during our visit. Joining this group was one of my best ideas ever lol.