Post by fossilman on Jul 9, 2007 1:24:30 GMT -5
Well, I finally got around to downloading my pics and tweaking them. I went through KY and up to IN to visit the caves, then decided to go mozarkite hunting on a whim, then over to Oklahoma for my trusty brown polishing coral site. An old field guide listed a couple of gravel bars across the KY line north of Nashville, so I decided to go check one out.
Here's the gravel bar. Lots more are upstream.
A few chunks of nice dark chert with silicified fossils
closeup of the corals
Not too much, but interesting stuff!
I unfortunately forgot to take pictures of a fossil hunting roadcut in Indiana, I found lots of fossil slabs with many 3 to 7 " long Archimedes screw bryozoans and blastoids, and got a huge slab with 2 very large crinoid crowns. Pics to follow once cleaned.
After running through there, and visiting a few rock shops in MO, I decided on a whim to check out the mozarkite area. Wished that I had remembered to contact those in MO that I had been emailing. Anyways, here's a site that looked promising.
I looked out onto the flat where I was parked and this was waiting for me, a nice lavender chunk of mozarkite. An auspicious start...
I hike up a recently blasted area, chock full of detonated primer cord, to look for some fresh stuff.
Every single chunk of chert/flint there had been knocked open, so somebody else knows about the site, and pretty much scavenged the mozarkite. Not much mozarkite, but literally tons of nice flint, banded gray/white/black, some with neat patterns. The photos don't do this justice, lots of dark flint with goo d banding.
After hauling off about 200 pounds of choice tumbling / knapping flint, I headed to Branson to visit the caves there. Unfortunately, the van in the above photo decided to lose the transmission, and is now in a scrap yard
. I rented a U-Haul for home, and, figuring I had a massive truck with tons (literally) of cargo space, headed towards my OK blue flint locality. No pictures of the site, my camera decided to hide in the Uhaul. But, I got some nice calcite, dolomite, and sphalerite crystals, plus about 400 pounds of all sorts of flint (mottled, gray-blue, blue, and yellow for tumbling.
Since I had to be home late that night, I quickly headed towards the coral site. I decided to go through Miami, thinking the roads had been reopened from the flooding. BIG mistake. Here's a farmer's field.
Here's a creek and pasture.
After more than an hour of delays getting misdirected around the mess, I got to the trusty Oklahoma brown/gray/black coral site I've been digging for a few years. The neighborhood's encroached the site as closely as it can without paving it over.
I freaked out some shore bird quickly, and soon discovered why, out on the flat:
The deluge that hammered Oklahoma was very nice to collecting. ;D These are unaltered natural piles of eroded coral reef:
how many corals can you count...
I'm really glad I hit a local liquor store before heading to hunt here, I knew it was going to be great...
All in all, I got about 600 pounds of the corals in only 4 hours of collecting (ran out of daylight and knew I was leaving hundreds more pounds
), 11 huge liquor boxed filled to the gills, plus a couple of dozen plates of the coral reef, including one almost 3 feet across with about 20 corals which I will prepare shortly. Sadly, the neighborhood is going to take this site soon, there are lot dividers on the site now, so it will disappear under sod. I'm glad I had the U Haul, 3/4 ton of self collected rock came home with me!
Here's the gravel bar. Lots more are upstream.
A few chunks of nice dark chert with silicified fossils
closeup of the corals
Not too much, but interesting stuff!
I unfortunately forgot to take pictures of a fossil hunting roadcut in Indiana, I found lots of fossil slabs with many 3 to 7 " long Archimedes screw bryozoans and blastoids, and got a huge slab with 2 very large crinoid crowns. Pics to follow once cleaned.
After running through there, and visiting a few rock shops in MO, I decided on a whim to check out the mozarkite area. Wished that I had remembered to contact those in MO that I had been emailing. Anyways, here's a site that looked promising.
I looked out onto the flat where I was parked and this was waiting for me, a nice lavender chunk of mozarkite. An auspicious start...
I hike up a recently blasted area, chock full of detonated primer cord, to look for some fresh stuff.
Every single chunk of chert/flint there had been knocked open, so somebody else knows about the site, and pretty much scavenged the mozarkite. Not much mozarkite, but literally tons of nice flint, banded gray/white/black, some with neat patterns. The photos don't do this justice, lots of dark flint with goo d banding.
After hauling off about 200 pounds of choice tumbling / knapping flint, I headed to Branson to visit the caves there. Unfortunately, the van in the above photo decided to lose the transmission, and is now in a scrap yard
. I rented a U-Haul for home, and, figuring I had a massive truck with tons (literally) of cargo space, headed towards my OK blue flint locality. No pictures of the site, my camera decided to hide in the Uhaul. But, I got some nice calcite, dolomite, and sphalerite crystals, plus about 400 pounds of all sorts of flint (mottled, gray-blue, blue, and yellow for tumbling. Since I had to be home late that night, I quickly headed towards the coral site. I decided to go through Miami, thinking the roads had been reopened from the flooding. BIG mistake. Here's a farmer's field.
Here's a creek and pasture.
After more than an hour of delays getting misdirected around the mess, I got to the trusty Oklahoma brown/gray/black coral site I've been digging for a few years. The neighborhood's encroached the site as closely as it can without paving it over.
I freaked out some shore bird quickly, and soon discovered why, out on the flat:
The deluge that hammered Oklahoma was very nice to collecting. ;D These are unaltered natural piles of eroded coral reef:
how many corals can you count...
I'm really glad I hit a local liquor store before heading to hunt here, I knew it was going to be great...
All in all, I got about 600 pounds of the corals in only 4 hours of collecting (ran out of daylight and knew I was leaving hundreds more pounds
), 11 huge liquor boxed filled to the gills, plus a couple of dozen plates of the coral reef, including one almost 3 feet across with about 20 corals which I will prepare shortly. Sadly, the neighborhood is going to take this site soon, there are lot dividers on the site now, so it will disappear under sod. I'm glad I had the U Haul, 3/4 ton of self collected rock came home with me!
Or swap the rough for new rough. 
