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Thread: Trilobites near Antelope Spring

  1. #1

    Trilobites near Antelope Spring

    More to come later, but I spent the weekend out west of Delta digging some trilobites. It was a blast. We stopped by the hermit's house in Marjum Pass to check it out as well. More details to come when I get the pictures from the camera.

    Oh, and I found a Camelbak bottle at the Hermit's House. If you lost yours out there, describe it to me to claim it.

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  5. #4
    Content removed
    Last edited by uintahiker; 02-07-2012 at 11:52 AM. Reason: Personal preference

  6. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by uintahiker View Post
    ...On the way home, we got stuck in a traffic jam in Delta, and wondered about the Millard County Cosmic Ray Center. Any ideas what it does?...
    They are experimenting with Cosmic Ray Guns



    Real Answer:
    http://www.telescopearray.org/

  7. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by uintahiker View Post
    A few weeks ago, we tried to search for trilobites in the Wellsville Mountains north of Brigham City. Unfortunately, accessing the site required crossing private land and we were unable to get permission from the landowner. Even though we weren't able to go then, we received an invitation from Val Gunther to accompany him on a trip he was taking to look for trilobites west of Delta. We jumped on the chance. Not only would we be able to go with someone who knew what they were doing, we knew that it would be the closest thing to a guarantee we would ever get to find fossils.
    We left after work on Thursday and made good time, reaching Delta at 7:30. We topped off our tank, then continued onward toward our final distination. Speaking with Val, he said they'd encountered a few setbacks and wouldn't roll in until midnight. Ultimately, they decided to stay the night in Provo and made it out about 8 the next morning.
    We arrived at the campsite about 9:00 and promptly set up the tent. My wife worked on putting our daughter to sleep, and I looked around a little bit. There were several nearby piles of shale from past digging, and I found a few trilobite shards. Sweet. This was going to be a good trip! I also found a little scorpion underneath one of the shale pieces.
    The next time I come out this way I hope to hit up Sunstone Knoll, Topaz Mountain, and the Dugway Geode Beds in addition to looking for trilobites.
    Wow sounds exactly like a few trips I took a few years back. Your scorpion looks like a Northern Scorpion paruroctonus boreus or a Yellow Ground Scorpion Vaejovis confusus, both are common in the West Desert. I found the Wellsville trilobites. If I remember right the canyon was Antimony. Just watch for the right shale above the Brigham quartzite and pull over. I stopped at a house and knocked. I asked the old man if he wouldn't mind me jumping his back fence. He said, "Sure, just make sure you are out by dark, leave some trilobites on the porch so I know you made it out safe." Cool old guy but he couldn't make the hike and wanted me to mule for him. Reasonable trade I suppose.
    The hill is straight up, even a 20 year old superhero will run out of gas in no time. I am not sure what the elevation gain was but wow. Lots of rock scrambling and talus slopes with a few spots requiring minor class 5 climbing skills. I would never recommend it for sure unless you are confident in your skills in treacherous exposed rocky areas. I got to the right shale layer and prompty filled a backpack with trilobites so heavy I couldn't lift it. I never moved farther than 30 feet and didn't have to split a thing, the fossils were laying everywhere. I spent the next hour choosing keepers. I ripped both straps on the backpack on the way out and had to carry it. Left the old man a nice stack of finds.

    Fossils are easy to come by in Logan Canyon in the right limestone layers crinoids (sea lilies) and brachiopods (clams and such) are super abundant. The sharp eye can spot cephalopods (squidy thingys) and Horn corals.

    Never made it out to the west desert trilobite beds I have enough to last several lifetimes. The Dugway geode beds are cool. Collection is so easy you might take waaaaaay more than you could ever need, enough to colapse every shelf in the house. We had 4 inch Dusky Clawed Scorpions Anuroctonus phaiodactylus under our tent in the morning. It reached 114 degrees while I was there, hottest I have ever seen. On the way back (made it as far as Provo) we had vehicle problems. Eerie that our trips sound so similar.

    Sunstone Knoll is easy to find. The labradorite plagiocase is cool it looks like bottle shards but is weathered rounded. I enjoyed hiking out on the alkali flats in back of it more though. Topaz Mountain is incredible. I found purple fluorite, bixbite cubes, stilbinite needle clumps, sherry colored topaz, and red beryl crystals. You can look for surface stuff if you want but the roads have whitish gray volcanic ryolite rocks at the edges, a couple of smacks with a rock hammer will reveal treasures beyond your wildest rock hounding imagination. I would add obsidian, jasper nuggets and apache tears to your to do list. Volcanic material is everywhere in the milford area. I am pretty sure I know exactly which rock collecting book you are using.

  8. #7
    If the book you're referring to is this one http://www.mapstore.utah.gov/mp95-4.html, you're right on. Awesome book.

    I'll make it out to the west desert for another trip sometime. There is a ton of cool stuff out there. Utah & Colorado are similar in a few ways. In Colorado, everybody recreates west of I-25. In Utah, pretty much everybody looks east of I-15.

    I'll have to make it up to the Wellsvilles sometimes. Digging those trilobites out west was pretty sweet.

  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by uintahiker View Post
    If the book you're referring to is this one http://www.mapstore.utah.gov/mp95-4.html, you're right on. Awesome book.
    Thought so. Yeah I went on a pilgrimage to all the sites in this book. Really great book.

  10. #9
    Hi, I am new to this site.
    I have been to Brigham city to the canyon you mention several times ,but with not luck,do you have the exact GPS coordinate of the actual collecting location.

    Thanks.

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