Trilobites scurried across the ocean floor, crinoids and cystoids grew like flowers on the sea floor. Brachiopod seashells littered the sea floor and snails and cephalopods dined on the abundant food sources. Occasionally the sea scorpions would glide by looking for an opportunity to feast on hapless prey.
The Silurian Sea in North America would eventually stretch from Wisconsin across Canada to New York and beyond. Fossils of that era can be found along what is now described as the Niagara Escarpment which runs from Wisconsin along Lake Michigan, through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to Ontario, Canada, through Niagara Falls to Rochester, New York. Remnants of the escarpment can be seen as high cliffs in various locations.
DIGGING THE ERIE CANAL
Fast forward to the Industrial Revolution. Seeking to move products from the East Coast to the Midwest and beyond, land surveys and construction began on the Erie Canal.
Laborers digging the Erie Canal between Rochester and Buffalo came across rocks with weird shapes inside them. Among those weird shapes were trilobites including Dalmanites "Butterflies of the Seas" and Arctinurus. In the 1830s paleontologist James Hall began excavating and studying the wide variety of fauna coming out of the sites. In 1930, and at various times, museums around the United States arrived to excavate and work the site including the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.
This story is from the March 2024 edition of Rock&Gem Magazine.
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This story is from the March 2024 edition of Rock&Gem Magazine.
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MORGAN HILL POPPY JASPER
In California, there are very few places to collect semi-precious stones. Many locations from the past have been either exhausted of the material or the land has been developed.
THE ACORN
The briolette gemstone has the same design attributes of a regular gemstone, however, the pavilion is elongated and the crown is usually domed. This is perfect for an elegant pendant, earrings or a pendulum.
HOW TO PUT A PROTECTIVE CAP ON A CAB
To protect a specimen cab, often a cap is needed. In my case, I had a slab with the because of the color of the background and the pattern. This background had a more silicified consistency than most sandstones. It had no graininess like most sandstone, so I'm inclined to compare it to a jasper. The pattern was typical of a dendrite.
The Resilient Revival of Anne Brontë & Her Stones
For the first time, the Anne Brontë rock collection underwent complete description and identification, and along with Professor Hazel Hutchison of Leeds University and Dr. Enrique Lozano Diz at ELODIZ (a company specializing in spectroscopy analysis), an analysis of that collaboration, Anne Brontë and Geology: A Study of her Collection of Stones, was published in April 2022 in Volume 47, Issue 2 of the peer-reviewed journal, Brontë Studies & Gazette.\"
Amazing Women with Rock-Solid Careers
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The Case of the Bleeding Glacier
It's a gory sight called Blood Falls. Ever since British geologist Thomas Griffith Taylor first noted it in 1911, it has been a mystery.
Asteroid Samples Are Said to Hold Invaluable Secrets
If Only Scientists Can Pop the Lid!
Paleontologists Embrace a New Method for Seeing Fossils within Rock
Fossil bone can be delicate. Attempts to remove it from a hard rock matrix by picking and scratching or etching with acids can be time-consuming and/or may end up obliterating that which you hope to study.
Need a Map of the Ocean Floor?
Call in the Seals!
A Step Closer to Hydrogen, the "Climate-Friendly Fuel"
As I reported last June, the world is racing to find sustainably renewable, nonpolluting sources of energy to replace our carbon-based reserves of coal, oil and gas.