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Rain, Pain and Automobiles
(Or – A Saga of a Nevada Fossil Collecting Trip gone Awry)
by Marc
Behrendt (Previously published in Fossil News Magazine, June, 2005)
In every collector’s career, there is one
trip that will stand out from all the others - for all the wrong reasons.
I hope that this trip will be the only one of its kind in my waning
collecting career. I have been reminded that such experiences are not all
bad – but are character building.
This particular character-building trip
began in July. My partner for this journey was Ron Rea, a friend who had
taken me to many of his sites throughout the Midwest. This would be his
first experience collecting out west. Our trip began by missing the exit to
the airport from the interstate, a harbinger of ill potent. Our nonstop
flight to Las Vegas, a first for me, meant we would get a fast start to our
destination. The seats on the flight were only slightly larger than those
used for Kindergarten children, and about as comfortable. Once at the
Vegas airport, the luggage conveyor had troubles operating, and then our
bags were among the last to pop out of the chute. My first bag contained all
my collecting tools and maps. My second bag contained nothing but
clothing, but it was the one opened and inspected, during which the zipper
broke - however the inspectors made no effort to secure the bag. I did not
notice the damage until Ron pointed out that I was leaving a trail of
clothing as I walked through the airport.
We took a bus to the rental car terminal
and emerged only to see a line of fellow weary travelers tailing out of the
office, snaking back and forth in the too small shade afforded by a
temporary tent. We stood in line in the 107-degree temperature for an hour
to pick up the vehicle reserved weeks ago - all we had to do was sign our
names! Finally, our turn came. We filled out all the paperwork and went
out to pick up our Jeep Cherokee. Except there weren’t any! We had to wait
about another hour before one popped up. Slightly battered and obviously
driven hard, the SUV seemed good enough. We drove north to escape Vegas,
however traffic stopped dead on the interstate due to construction. 3 hours
after landing, we finally left the Las Vegas city limits!
The first few hours of driving in the
desert are always magical (at least for us easterners.) The temperature
hovered around 110, but dropped as we ascended to higher elevations and
where we began to see more and more clouds. We drove through several light
showers and observed much virga, rain from clouds that does not reach the
ground. The Jeep’s steering was really loose. After about 5 hours of
driving, we heard an odd sound that came and left before we could identify
where it was coming from. We arrived at our first destination, Ely, Nevada,
an hour behind schedule.
Our first stop was the motel, which the
night before I’d confirmed reservations of our late arrival. I gave the
desk clerk my name and she said, “Wow, I am glad you are here. I almost
gave your room away ten minutes ago, but decided to give you another half
hour.” It ends up the room was a smoking room, which was not what I
requested and, which would not be compatible with my migraines or sinuses.
But at the time it seemed to be the only available room in town, so we took
it.
The first leg of our collecting trip was to
explore the Dunderberg Formation north of Ely. My research indicated this
unit has not been thoroughly researched or explored; my goal was to find
some new localities with well-preserved complete trilobites. The Dunderberg
is an Upper Cambrian limestone interbedded with thin layers of shale and is
synonymous or similar with the Nolichucky Formation, a unit I have been
studying in eastern Alabama where Aphelaspis buttsi and
Glyptagnostus reticulatis reticulatis are the two most common
trilobites. The Dunderberg is known for being fossiliferous, but typically
everything is fragmented with most species having been described merely from
glabella or free cheeks. Complete specimens are not discussed at all. In
my opinion the research was limited - there ought to be much more than
published literature indicated.
This first day afield Ron and I drove north
to an unnamed canyon I felt would harbor Dunderberg exposures. This new
site was a challenge. We had no idea where the exposures would be. So Ron
and I slowly ascended the mountain, poking and picking our way up, huffing
and puffing as 2 middle-aged Midwesterners unaccustomed to the elevation
would be. Everywhere were huge elk tracks. We never saw elk, however they
are supposedly quite common in this area. By lunchtime, we’d found several
shale exposures completely void of fossils. With binoculars we’d spotted
several more possible collecting sites in distant washes. We decided to
split up, Ron pealed off to study a perpendicular bed of limestone and shale
popping out of the ground.
As I continued upward I came
across a fabulous exposure of limestone and shale. Surely this was it! The
rock was a tannish orange color, smooth and clean, but I did not see any
evidence of fossils. At the moment that was the least of my worries. I was
overcome by dizziness due to the elevation and had to sit. The world slowly
spun around and eventually settled down. Ron called me on the radio and I
stood to show him my position. He saw me, but the dizziness returned and I
bent over to keep from falling. As I looked down, my eyes focused on a
complete trilobite! On my hands and knees I examined the rocks, and found 2
more complete, inverted and weathered trilobites - all Aphelaspis.
They were in a cherty, nodular limestone layer from somewhere in the
adjacent wall. From the wall I pulled out a loose chunk of limey shale
from the exposure and to my surprise (and it too!) was a monstrous spider 3
inches across!!! I moved over and pulled another pie-sized piece of rock
from the wall and behold, there was another spider! I poked around but saw
no fossils, just lots of spiders.
I crawled around for a while longer and
discovered a layer of shale that yielded several trilobite fragments upon
simple examination. In 5 minutes of pulling out loose material, I found 2
trilobites with no free cheeks along with many more fragments. I recorded
the GPS coordinates and marked the spot for closer examination with Ron the
next day. I then descended to a lower elevation where the dizziness
vanished, locating no other fossiliferous rocks during my exploration.
Ron worked his way down to
the exposures that we saw across a valley. On the way he’d found brachiopod
and gastropod laden limestone, but nothing of interest to us. Late
afternoon he called me and told me he finally found a complete bug. I
worked my way down towards him, finding only a couple layers of roughly
preserved brachiopods in limestone.
I found Ron at the base of a vertical
layered limestone exposure. He proudly showed me his find - 2 trilobites
that looked very much like the Swedish olenid trilobite Peltura. As
a matter of fact, the black, finely grained, sparkly limestone looked
identical to the Peltura layer! This was certainly not the Dunderberg
Formation. Research that night would show this was likely the Raitt
Limestone. The olenids were found inside the limestone, not on the surface,
so we broke apart all we could. I found a couple partials while Ron found
nothing more. We began to check out the shale facies and discovered
trilobites in the shale! Most were missing free cheeks and preservation was
poor in most instances, but trilobites were popping up every few minutes.
We packed the specimens and carried them to the Jeep, excited about the next
day’s prospects.
We were back to the canyon at daylight,
ready for the day of our lives. Ron and I hiked to the high elevation
Dunderberg exposure. We brought 8 canvass bags and enough paper to wrap the
countless specimens we’d find. We worked the shale exposure first. In an
hour we had a wonderful excavation going. There was one problem. We’d only
found a few fragments and only one complete but cheekless bug. The second
hour, was pitiful, we found nothing. Moving around, we examined the
surface nodular rocks. finding a dozen badly weathered once complete
trilobites, but nothing spectacular like I’d found the day before. We both
sat to drink water and look out at the beautiful vista before us. The
scenery was breathtaking. The sky was a beautiful cerulean blue, with just
a few clouds along the horizon beyond the mountains.
We worked the initial excavation for
another 15 minutes and then moved to the limestone spider rocks, and still
found nothing. Even the spiders left. We were just planning to work the
shale further when over the horizon a series of storms came directly at us.
The clouds built quickly and there was much lightning. Since a mountaintop
is a bad place to experience an electrical storm, we quickly packed and
headed downward to a safer level if not all the way to the truck. It was
soon apparent we would not make it far, so we scrambled to Ron’s site where
the limestone wall and boulders would afford us cover on 2 sides. The wind
and rain came swiftly and pounded us for about 10 minutes. The lightning
was intense and ensuing thunder was deafening. It left us shivering but
relieved it was over. The sky still appeared capable of sending another
storm our way, so we remained at and worked Ron’s site. To our surprise we
did not find a single trilobite! It was as if they all left during the
night! Another storm popped over the mountains across the valley and was
targeting us, so we headed back to the motel. Instead of 8 canvas bags
filled to capacity with trilobites, we each had one bag that contained 3 or
4 specimens.
The weather continued to be rough that
night so we decided to head on to our next locality in Central Nevada. We
were to meet Dr. Shanan Peters and Ken Karns and then assist at one of
Shanan’s Lower Ordovician research sites. Ron and I decided to leave
early and set up camp ahead of the other two. We also planned to mail 4
boxes of specimens at the Post Office on the way through Ely. The bad news
was Ely’s Post Office did not open on Saturday until late morning, so we
traveled to Eureka, only to discover their Post Office was closed on
weekends! Thus we were forced to travel with 4 packages that literally
filled the back of the Jeep whose annoying sound kept returning for longer
intervals. We drove into the desert for 2 hours using several maps and the
GPS unit to insure we arrive at the designated meeting place. The GPS unit
said we were at the spot. The maps said we were at the spot. Having been
there before, I knew we were not at the spot. As we drove on to look for
any familiar landmarks Ron remarked, “does the Jeep feel right to you?” I
stopped and we got out – a flat tire. We had to empty the entire Jeep to
get to the spare and jack. The tires that I thought appeared worn were even
worse than I thought. We agreed we could not travel without a spare. But
we wanted to let Ken and Shanan know that we were heading back to Eureka to
repair the tire.
We drove back the way we came, and parked
alongside the road. Ron climbed a hill across the ditch to watch for
Shanan’s truck. An hour later Ron yelled that they were coming. We stood
in the road expecting them to come around a small hill and come right upon
us. Surprise!!! They never showed up! We walked 100 yards around the hill
and we saw fresh tire tracks turn off the road and lead out of sight! They
never came back out! We posted a note for them explaining where we are
going.
Being Saturday, Eureka had no tire stores
open. The engine was now making constant noise that was easily translated
as major transmission trouble. From Eureka I called the rental company
emergency number and for half an hour the service representative tried to
make arrangements for a new vehicle. We were a minimum of 7 hours from Las
Vegas and there was nobody who could deliver a vehicle; we’d have to drive
to Vegas for the exchange. Then he determined we could make the exchange in
Reno, which was only about 6 hours away. Being late afternoon we considered
getting a motel room. But this mid-desert town’s lodging was totally booked
up because they were hosting a softball tournament. At this point Ron told
me to chill and enjoy the scenery since we were going to have to drive a
minimum of 6 hours to make the switch at Reno. Temperatures rose to 112 as
we drove across the salt plains. With no spare. And a rotten
transmission. And 3 remaining tires being moderately bald.
Just before dusk, Ron pointed to the
horizon and commented how he’d never expected to see fog in the desert. It
was not long before we discovered it was not fog, but rather an intense dust
storm. We drove an hour in near white out conditions until we reached the
mountains near Reno and finally entered Reno around midnight. Reno is an
interesting town at night. They do not illuminate any of their interstate
signs and headlights do not reach high enough to read the signs.
Construction, with various lane closures and a very poorly marked exit to
switch interstates made the white-knuckle journey complete.
The rental company was supposed to be
expecting us and waiting with a new Jeep. They weren’t. After many phone
calls, they finally got the story and facts straight, and a nice, working
Jeep pulled up. We emptied the truck (2nd time) and loaded the
replacement Jeep. We decided to get out of Reno and find a place to stay.
We headed east. After 2 fully booked hotels, we finally found a motel with
vacancies. As I registered I related our day to the clerk. She felt so
sorry for us she gave us a couple extra discounts.
The next morning we drove back to meet Ken
and Shanan. They never read the note. In fact, they never drove out of that
“road” that they turned onto. So we slowly drove down that road, stopping
to periodically check to see where the tire tracks went and what the road
was like. Finally, about 2 miles later, on a hilltop I saw a glare from a
windshield down below. We pulled beside Shanan’s truck expecting lots of
smiles and handshakes, but the place was deserted. Ron and I yelled. We
walked around trying to find them. Ron even shot his 9 mm handgun. We got
no response. Finally we put on our backpacks and went for a hike. I am not
sure how but Ron spotted a tiny pink dot near the top of a mountain. He
pointed it out to me, and it took quite a while before I focused on the
spot. The mountain was steep and the hike up was arduous. As I pulled
myself up to the targeted ledge, Ken, with just a glance my way asked, “So,
where have you been?” The entire sordid story poured out!
Most amazing about this mountaintop
locality - this was the place we were supposed to meet. My maps and
GPS coordinates were all off kilter and nobody noticed. Not expecting this
to be the spot, I failed to recognize any of the landmarks! But it
never felt so good to see friends as it had at that moment! Since Ron and
I did not expect to be doing heavy duty collecting on this hike, we only had
our basic hammer, chisel and newspaper in our backpacks. Digging was an
interesting experience, but we managed to do well enough.
We were collecting in the Nine Mile
Formation, Lower Ordovician shale that in spots is highly fossiliferous.
This location is one that Shanan has been researching for a couple years and
it’s been a real honor and pleasure to participate with him on this dig.
Primarily we were looking for new, unusual, and well-preserved fauna and
specimens. The trick to collect this shale is to carefully separate the
laminations as much as possible. The predominant fossils are trilobites
with occasional brachiopods and graptolites. Cystoid plates have been
found, though no complete specimens have been collected yet. There were
several trilobite genera found complete: Pseudocybele, Lachnostoma,
Nileus, Lonchodomas (Ampyxina?), and Geragnostus.
Fragments of other genera have been found, but our hopes to find anything
new did not materialize on this day. Still, many excellent specimens were
found. Clouds built up during the afternoon and winds began to gust.
Storms continuously passed by, we were fortunate to stay dry. That evening
Ken and Shanan entertained us with stories of rattlesnake and mountain lion
encounters. That night Ron slept with one eye open, senses attuned to any
lurking danger.
The next day, we spent the entire day on
the face of the mountain. This was the only day, in the 15-day experience
that Ron and I collected for a full day! I’d hoped to stay for another few
days but Shanan needed to check out another site he’d been researching. So
the next morning we packed up and headed to the next site with our Jeep
following Shanan’s truck. We’d not traveled 5 minutes when Shanan abruptly
stopped and Ken went running up ahead. He returned and the scenario
replayed itself 5 minutes later. We finally got out to see what was
happening. Ken, an ardent insect collector, was on his hands and knees with
forceps, picking out tiny beetles from a cow plop in the road.
2 hours later we arrived at the second
locality where we collected the Antelope Valley Limestone that
stratigraphically sets on top of the Nine Mile Shale. At this site we all
separated. From noon until two pm, storms skirted our site. When it was
obvious we were going to get drenched, everybody headed back to the camp.
Ken came back in the rain, smiling broadly. It was too obvious he hit the
jackpot. Sure enough, he had discovered a layer of small trilobites, all
spiny and complete. One, we would discover later, was a fully complete
Remopleurides. Shanan had found a Pseudomera, a type of
Pliomerid, which measured 2.5 inched wide! The cephalon and pygidium were
present but buried so the absolute length could not be determined, but this
bug was enormous. The two of them showed off their prize specimens inside
the truck while being rocked by rain and wind. Meanwhile, Ron lamented he’d
only found 2 asaphids. He pulled them out - both complete – and
species that we’d not found there before. And I had nothing to show – I was
skunked.
When the storm moved on, we headed back
out. Ken, knowing what to look for, hunted for the tiny bugs; Shanan and I
went our own ways looking for that layer. I did some exploring, looking for
that good layer as well as new exposures, and came upon a cave that reeked
of cat smells. I left that area immediately! Ron stayed low, because his
knees were beginning to hurt. As evening arrived, Shanan returned with
nothing. Ron had found nothing. I found nothing. Ken found more small
trilobites! What a day he had!
The next day, Ken and Shanan bid us adieu.
They were heading to Montana for a weeklong major collecting experience.
Ron and I decided to stay where we were after closely studying what matrix
Ken’s tiny trilobites were found. We collected until about noon and met at
lunch. I did not find one miserable trilobite! Ron said he’d found
nothing. Two days later he put his hand in his pants pocket and exclaims
“oh yeah, I forgot I found this the other day.” And he hands me a tiny
trilobite like Ken had found. Argh!
We needed to get more supplies but figured
we’d come back and spend a few more days at Shanan’s sites, even though
Ron’s knee was seriously aching. It was windy, and I’d never seen so many
dust devils at one time. We had to drive through one particularly large
one. It did not do anything remotely interesting to the Jeep but the dust
we kicked up sucked up into the dust devil, which then made quite a display!
We were driving on the state route back to
Eureka when we blew another tire. The problem was this section of road was
elevated and very hilly There was no visibility thus we could not pull over
to change the tire. We drove on the flat for about 10 miles until we came
upon a small turnoff. We emptied the truck (3rd time) and changed the tire.
Eureka’s tire shop was closed for the week but the Post Office was indeed
open, so we at least got rid of several packages. After purchasing a can of
Fix-a Flat we drove on to Ely. The tire store was open and they repaired
our tire. Of course we had to empty the Jeep again (4th time).
When we were leaving, there was a line of 4 other tourists with flats. We
asked the owner if this is normal and his response was “From the moment we
open to the moment we close, every day!” We found a motel and unloaded
the truck (5th time) into the motel room! We took the rest of
the day off and just relaxed.
We ate dinner at the Jailhouse Restaurant where
diners are seated in their own jail cell complete with closing iron-barred
doors. The food was magnificent and the atmosphere was quite unique. The
next morning we shopped around town for souvenirs. Ron found a shop that
sold giant jars of olives stuffed with garlic cloves. He bought one to take
home for party snacks. Heavy monsoonal rain and storms were forecast for
the Ely area for the next few days so returning to Shanan’s sites or the
Dunderberg sites seemed futile. Ron recited a saying “If everything is
going wrong, find something that always works.” So we gave up Nevada and
headed to Utah, where it might be hot but it wouldn’t be raining.
Ron had never
been to the House Range so we collected the Wheeler, Marjum and Weeks
Formations. All that bouncing on gravel roads loosened our bodies’ joints
as well as the lid to the giant jar of garlic olives. It was not long
before the odor was unmistakable. The Utah heat exacerbated the aroma.
“Luckily”, the juice absorbed into Ron’s belongings and not into the truck’s
upholstery. Even after the jar was removed the smell was indelibly
imprinted within the trucks confines. Ron felt compelled to eat all the
garlic olives – no use wasting them.
The House Range sites I chose
were simple requiring little hiking because Ron’s knee was beginning to
swell. It should have been no surprise that the skies kept clouding up and
threatening us, but each storm skirted around us.
The last day we had two choices. We could
go to Swasey Mountain, which I’ve collected several times, having found
about all the species there are to find. Or there was a site that required a
gentle 2-mile uphill hike - a new spot I’d discovered on my last trip to
Utah. Finding it was dicey since my maps were all in Ohio. I was
confident I would find the spot so that is where we headed. Ron and I hiked
to exactly where I thought the site would be. I was wrong. We hunted and
picked around as we searched, and that was when the world turned black.
Lightning erupted - first cloud to cloud, then cloud to ground. Soon,
lightning was shooting from the heavens every 15 seconds. Ron and I took
refuge halfway down a very deep ravine. The rain came, the wind blew, and
the lightning and thunder flashed and crashed. It was a bad situation, and
we had nowhere to hide. Then I saw a lightning bolt strike close to where
we would have been collecting on Swasey Mountain. Immediately there was
smoke that grew denser with time. The irony was not lost on us - we and/or
our vehicle could have been toasted! Finally – something went right! Ron
and I hiked a bit more, but mostly we just relaxed, accepting that this
collecting trip was not going to meet our dreams’ yields.
The drive back to Las Vegas was long
including some very tense moments of driving through blinding rain and
intense winds. We stayed overnight in Vegas, where Ron finished off the
garlic olives. Our trip home was uneventful and our bags even arrived
intact. Ron met his family and left. I stood waiting for my wife. Half
an hour later my 11-year-old daughter arrived with a family friend in tow.
It seems my wife had a flat tire on the way to pick me up….
Epilogue
The story you have just read is true. The
luck – or lack of it – followed all of us even after leaving Nevada. My
wife had the flat tire, stranding me in the airport. Ron’s vehicle likewise
developed tire trouble on the way home. Ken and Shanan developed 3 flat
tires and then never made it to their targeted Montana collecting site due
to illness, so they headed home to Ohio. Shortly afterwards, Ron required
knee surgery to repair damage caused many years ago, but which the mountains
proved to be the last straw.
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