Post by snowmom on Aug 3, 2014 8:11:51 GMT -5
Have been spending time hunting almost every week. This is getting to be a favorite. Probably one of the most popular
fossil hunting sites in the state, people come from all over to look for fossils and it is permitted to take home up to 25 lb a year (honor system) so long as you don't change the nature of the landscape.
When you enter the park the road curves to the right and leads to a boat ramp and a parking lot. There is beach access to the right at
the top of the parking lot area down a fairly steep bank but the path is well worn. The lake here can be very wild and dangerous to enter and there are usually waves, but worn fossils can be found in the shale, some are silicate corals with a black matrix. very dramatic.
If the waves are really high this beach is best left alone. But on a calm day(very rare) I can wade out about 3 ft from shore where the water is knee to belly button deep and the footing is treacherous with larger slick and pointy rocks to catch your feet in.
I like to come down here when the water is high and the waves are up.. the sound is tremendous!
To the left of the boat ramps is an abandoned pier, then a huge pile of slag surrounded by lesser piles. There is a separate parking lot near the slag heaps which also is close to the trail.
standing in the parking lot facing the slag heaps the trail head is to the left and there is a worn path through the brush and a bush marked with an orange tag... follow just a hundred feet or so to come out on the trail. Here is where we will find the real
pickings! starting down the trail, there are two branches shortly. Take the left (also marked with an orange tag on a bush)
and end up here, in the heart of the quarry.
there is probably a square mile or more covered with limestone fossil leavings, and many un mined fossil ridges still jut above
the filled areas. It is like a moonscape. These are Devonian fossils, mostly stromatolite but also corals and sponges, shells in places that resemble devils toenails on a smaller scale. I am
told that people have found trilobites as well, but suspect they are much more rare.
these fossils were on the ground near the trail, perhaps picked up by hunters who had to lighten their load or found something better so that these became leaverites. Fossil material is everywhere here in great abundance.
going back to the trail, follow it to the right this time. It will curve around the back of the shale pile and you will see this.
part of an old mine tube here has been made into a hibernation shelter for the little brown bats which live here.
follow the trail around the end of the piles and head toward the water, you can hear it and see it through the trees. a worn path
down toward the beach and then up the pile of shale that marks the high water mark, and onto the actual beach.
rocks here are different in character and there is a lot of glacial leavings. There is still some lime mud balls in the mix between them and some shale, but the majority of the beach is boulders to large rocks, except near the high water mark where the rocks are smaller and there is more shale. These rocks extend out farther than I have been able to explore into the bay and again are very slippery and treacherous. Here where the water is calmer they majority of the rocks submerged in water are also covered with greyish slime and muddy stuff. Many of the rocks are crusted with calcium from all the lime in the water. but there are still some interesting things
to be seen. this giant pudding stone for example
the photo doesn't show it well, but it is probably the size of the front end of a Volkswagen. Too big to move, but you can see where people have hacked at it trying to remove a piece. I have found very few pieces of pudding stone here, the beach has been extensively picked for years before the state took over management of it and pudding stone is always highly competed for.
testimony to the power of the lake, this is probably part of a wooden pier which used to extend into the bay area near the boat launch. It is about 12x12 inches and about 15 ft long. Note it has been carried or thrown all the way up to the high water mark.
The lake was high as was the water level when I took these photos, the sound is incredible when high waves hit the shores among all those rocks. It booms and echoes and vibrates your innards and your bones. Love that! I plan to come back and take more photos when the gales of November start in earnest.