Hunting for Trilobites

Julie playing in the shale

Yesterday we roamed back to the south and west to visit the Oak Springs Trilobite Site and hunt for some fossils.

After about a quarter mile hike on the well marked trail we entered a depression or wash full of tan to purple shale shards. There were plentiful hole remnants from prior visitors digging for fossils.

We were digging for the Olenellus genus of trilobite, an extinct species that was around for a “brief” 10 or so million years over 500 million years ago. That existence lifetime seems so short in that context. Homo sapiens have been around for a few hundred thousand years. I guess we can aspire to their longevity.

Trilobite fossils

Our digging was successful and so much fun! We dug holes to find specimens as well as split surface level shale fragments.