Lake Erie, Niagara Region, ReportThis was actually a fishing trip where I wound up stuffing some fossils in with my fishing stuff. The pics below are actually those of some trace fossils that I found in a large Lake Erie tributary in PA, and in particular on was very interesting and kind of funny IMHO. And also, what good is a fishing trip without a few pics of the many fish that we caught. I have a pic for just about every fish, so without boring everyone, I'll post a few of my favorites.
Also, I took home a bunch of shale from 18 Mile Creek, a tributary of Lake Erie in NY. From the little bit of research that I did, it seems that these are Devonian fossils, perhaps the Hamilton group? I will get back to you all on that in addition to the pictures from that area.
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Location
| Pennsylvania, USA |
| ID | 3126 |
| Member | Fat Boy |
| Date Added | 11/24/2008 |
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| These were everywhere, pieces of shale with what look like trace fossils of worm burrows or trails. Here is a typical one. |
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| This one is funny to me. Yeah, it's got those same worm or whatever burrows, but this one was unique for sure, and my fishing buddy and I had a first but mistaken impression of an evil serpent! At any rate, it's pretty kewl! |
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| A close up of the fake "snake" reveals what appear to be external molds of some very tiny brachiopods. |
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| During our NY portion of the trip, we fished the mighty Niagara River. I've caught many a lake trout over the years but very few this size. It was 32" long. But what makes it special is that it was my first one ever taken on a fly rod. Now that I have them figured out, there will be many more in the future I hope. I usually do some fossil hunting in this area, but I was too focused on the fishing and failed to collect any at this location. |
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| Here is a nice steelhead from the PA tributary. We caught a lot of these on the trip. This particular one made for a nice picture with that chrome look and nice colorful stripe, probably right out of the lake! |
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| Here is a real colorful male that has probably been in the stream awhile, again from PA waters. |
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| This wasn't a big one, but it's a pretty one. Actually, it's not a steelhead, but rather a resident stream rainbow trout. You can tell the difference with the very gold coloration. I love this picture. It was also in the PA stream. |
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| My buddy and I hooked up on a double and got a very nice PA angler to take a pic of us. He actually caught a lot more fish than I did. I still had my best trip ever and caught a lot of fish! |
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| OK, my buddy isn't really into fossil collecting, being the hardcore steelhead angler that he is. But then again, maybe he's got the fossil bug cuz he spent well over an hour looking for trilobites with me! He's got a pretty good eye for them too! Pics on those to come later. |
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