Black Cat Mountain, OK and Sherman, TX; May 2005

Black Cat Mountain, OK:

Shootout at the OK Quarry
April 30 - May 4th, 2005

Haragan Formation, Lower Devonian

click here, or scroll to the bottom of the page to see the fossils found

"Shootout at the OK Quarry"

Here, Roy from The New York Times Paleontological Team and I have a shootout at the OK quarry on Black Cat Mountain. The last man standing gets the trilobites.

"The quarry operations"

Black Cat Mountain is quarried by Robert Carroll, a fossil enthusiast to say the least. He carefully mines this mountain for its world class trilobites. Layers of limestone from the Haragan Formation are carefully excavated and stacked into piles. These piles are then searched for the trilobites. Later he preps them for sale at the Tucson Show.

"Huntonia"

This is one of the better finds of the trip. It doesn't look like much now, but after it's prepped, this will be a beautiful Huntonia trilobite, one of the more sought after trilobites on Black Cat Mountain.

"Amy is searching for more trilobites"

Even when the temperature became warm and everyone else was in short sleeves, she continued to wear her winter parka. Looking at her made us all cold.

"Splitting Rock"

The Trilobites are found in the rock, usually when the rock is split, an outline of the bug is seen on both sides of the split. The rock is then glued back together and prepped.

From April 30th to May 4th, Amy and I went down to Oklahoma and Texas with Roy and “Wrong Way” Rob from Times Scientific for a fossil trip. The primary goal of this trip was to spend a few days at Bob Carroll’s quarry on Black Cat Mountain in Oklahoma. Bob is a world-renowned preparator of Oklahoma trilobites, and Black Cat Mountain is probably the best place in North America to find trilobites.

We spent a few days there collecting trilobite specimens such as a Ketternaspis, Huntonia, Dicranurus, and a bunch of Redops. We also ventured into Texas and hit a spot near Sherman for Ptychodus teeth, a type of Cretaceous shark (I found one…). Finally, we took a brief jaunt to a spot for Ammonites. At the Ammonite spot, we all found some ammonites, mostly fragments though. However, Roy found an interesting arrowhead.

In the end we took back approximately 100 pounds of fossils, mostly trilobites. Enough to keep me busy prepping for months! Unfortunately, I have been unable to begin prepping the fossils. I first need a harder abrasive for my air unit. Check back in a few weeks and I should start to have some pics of prepped specimens. Also be sure to check out Roy’s site, Times Scientific , he has some really nice specimens already prepped.

"Creepy Crawlies"

Yes, the place was chalk full of creepy crawlies. We were warned to stay clear of rattle snake and scorpion, but no one told us of tarantula! I believe this one was guarding a trilobite.

"Cool Lizard"

Besides the creepy crawlies, there were some pretty cool wildlife. We saw a roadrunner... briefly (they are fast!), some neat looking lizards, and armadillo. The armadillo were curiously laying on the side of the road.. Perhaps they were resting.

"Attack Lizard"

Wrong Way Rob lifted a rock to find this lizard. Although small, he was ferocious and would attack anything near him!

Pics of the Fossils Found

These are "Test" Trilobites. These are usually "float" trilobites (matrix free trilobites that have eroded out), and thus have cracks and defects in them. I am going to prep these ones first to get use to prepping Clarita trilobites before I attempt to prep the better specimens. As time goes on, more and more "test" bugs will be added to this link.

Test bugs

I just got some powdered dolmite for my air abrasive unit, and an air scribe. I can now prep some select specimens. As I prep them, they will appear on this part of the webpage.