Dry Dredgers Field Trip
May 25, 2002
Mt. Orab, Ohio

Click HERE for more information on this annual event.

Introduction and Table of Contents

The weather turned out to be sunny and nice for the Dry Dredgers' third annual trip to the famous Mt. Orab Trilobite locality. Attendance was good and many more trilobites were found than in the two years previous.

The site is private property that has been purchased and dug with heavy equipment explicitly for extracting commercial quantities of trilobites. Dan Cooper has mined these rich trilobite layers for decades. Tens of thousands of Flexicalymene and Isotelus trilobites have come from this site. The property is now owned by Don Bissett, who has graciously allowed the Dry Dredgers to visit the site and dig trilobites for a fee. Surface collecting was also allowed for dues-paying Dry Dredgers members at no cost.

The site exposes the Arnheim formation of the Cincinnatian Series Maysvillian Stage. The layers containing large concentrations of trilobites are shaly and also contain calcarious nodules, graptolites and Pseudolingula, an fragile inarticulate Brachiopod.

This year, many of the surface collectors came away with fists full of enrolled and prone Flexicalymene trilobites in the first half hour of searching. The diggers also had pretty good luck. I saw several nice, enrolled Isotelus trilobites found and loads of Flexi's. Many of these are pictured in the pages to follow.


A special thanks to Don Bissett, trilobite farm owner and Dry Dredger for making this trip possible. Also thanks to Dan Cooper, who coordinated this outing. It was a big success.

Here are the pictures of the trip...

Table of Contents
Page 1: Getting Started
Page 2: Digging and Collecting
Page 3: More Digging and Collecting
Page 4: More Digging and Collecting
Page 5: More Digging and Collecting
Page 6: More Digging and Collecting
Page 7: Pictures of fossils found that day
Page 8: More pictures of fossils found that day

Past Mt. Orab Field Trips:
2001
2000

For More Information:
A Pictorial Demonstration of How to Dig Trilobites
Some Trilobites of the Cincinnatian

Back to the Field Trip Index

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