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Murphy’s Laws of Trilobite Collecting
By Marc Behrendt
While fossil collecting, I have observed and experienced occurrences which defy the
imagination and odds to be repeated. Yet they do occur, over and over. In general terms
they are considered Murphy’s Law. However, the laws for trilobite collecting can be
stated in their own specific vernacular. The following is a compilation of a year’s
observations. I decided to let you, the reader, develop your own favorite name of each
law, corollary, or axiom.
- Murphy’s Law – Anything that can go wrong, will.
- The fossil bed will lie just below the waterline.
- The adversity of weather is directly proportional to the intensity of anticipation.
- The pick will hit a fossil.
- When a fabulous trilobite is found exposed, one piece will be missing.
- Corollary – The chance of finding that piece is inversely proportional to the
importance of the
- missing piece.
- When thoughts are entertained to abandon a fruitless site, one good specimen will be
found.
- Corollary – No further specimens will be found until one thinks of leaving again.
- While searching unsuccessfully for quality fossils all day, a newcomer will join you and
find
- something immediately.
- A beginner on his/her first field-collecting trip will find something fantastic (and not
know it.)
- If the goal of a collecting trip is to enjoy the peace and quiet, a major field trip
will be at the same site.
- The best trilobite of the day will be found in the flakiest shale.
- If a tiny piece of shale is removed from a trilobite to further examine the specimen,
the small piece of shale will take with it a large piece of the specimen.
- The rare trilobite sought today will be found by somebody tomorrow at the same site.
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