
| REGISTRATION INFORMATION: To register, please email Cathy at cathy@fossilandnaturetrips.com or call 610-209-0758 or 610-647-7926 Checks should be made payable to Cathy Young and mailed to: 239 Valley View Road Berwyn, PA 19312 Sorry, we are currently unable to accept credit cards. Thank You!! |
| Fall Stratford Hall Fossil Collecting Weekend Saturday, September 11th and Sunday, September 12th, 2010 Dr. Lauck Ward, Curator Emeritus of Invertebrate Paleontology of the Virginia Museum of Natural History and leading authority of molluscan biostratigraphy of the Atlantic Coastal Plain will lead us on a weekend of fossil collecting adventures. Saturday morning we will meet at beautiful Stratford Hall, General Robert E. Lee’s birthplace, and home of 2 signers of the Declaration of Independence. We’ll caravan to the beach, and collect fossils all day. This site is a well-known world class fossil site, and the beach is closed to the public, except for a small roped-in area. Dr. Ward is the only person who has special permission by the Executive Director to bring groups up and down the beach to collect the fabulous fossils. As long as the Potomac and winds cooperate, we’ll have motor boats with us to take people up and down the beaches to even more remote areas at no extra charge. This site is Upper Miocene Age (6 – 14 million years old). Shark teeth, whale bone and turtle shell are mainly found here. Some complete whale, porpoise and crocodile skeletons have been collected here. Occasionally even a Megalodon shark tooth is found (a Megalodon is an extinct giant shark – the huge monster whose teeth can reach 5 or 6 inches long). There are also beautiful fossil shells found here, including Chesapectens and Ecphora. Some of the Chesapectens have both valves, and some of the Ecphora are complete or almost complete. Sunday we will go back to Stratford Hall to collect more fossils there for half a day. This trip is great for adults and children ages 4 and up. Cost: $85 per adult and $35 per child under age 18. Cost does not include transportation, lodging, food or Stratford Hall grounds fees. FOR MORE INFORMATION, OR TO REGISTER FOR THIS SPECTACULAR TRIP, E-MAIL CATHY YOUNG AT cathy@fossilandnaturetrips.com or call 610-209-0758 Lacawanna Valley - Scranton Mines and Plant Fossils Trip Saturday, September 18th and Sunday, September 19th, 2010 Lackawanna Valley in Pennsylvania is famous for its anthracite coal. We’ll start our weekend by going aboard a mine car and exploring three different veins of coal 300 feet below the earth. Iron was mined before coal in this region, so we will stop by the Scranton Iron Furnaces Park to see aspects of the early iron industry. Our leader for the weekend will be Karenne Snow, past president of the Philadelphia Mineralogical Society and co- author of Gem Trails of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. During the weekend, we will make three or four stops for fern fossils and minerals in Archbald, Jermyn and Carbondale. Associated with the coal seams are shales and sandstones in which we can find calamites (a fern tree) trunks and branches and Lepidodendron (also a fern tree) branches and leaves. In addition to seams in place, we will be collecting from mine dumps. Minerals that grow in seams as secondary mineralization include quartz, sphalerite, galena, siderite and chalcopyrite. We recommend this trip for ages 7 and up. Cost: $85 per adult and $35 per child under 18. Cost does not include transportation, food, lodging or coal mine tour fees. FOR MORE INFORMATION, OR TO REGISTER FOR THIS SPECTACULAR TRIP, E-MAIL CATHY YOUNG AT cathy@fossilandnaturetrips.com or call 610-209-0758 Cape Fear River Fossil Collecting Trip Friday, October 1st, Saturday, October 2nd and Sunday, October 3rd, 2010 Dr. Lauck Ward, Curator Emeritus of Invertebrate Paleontology at the Virginia Museum of Natural History will lead a 3-day fossil adventure in North Carolina. We’ll spend Friday going to 2 North Carolina mines between New Bern and Elizabethtown, NC. We’ll collect fossil shark teeth, crocodile teeth, sea urchins, sand dollars, and fossil shells at these mines. We’ll spend Saturday and Sunday on the Cape Fear River via boats, collecting Cretaceous age fossils at several locations. And, we’ll drive to sites yielding fabulous fossil shells from the Pliocene and Upper Pleistecene ages. On the Cape Fear River, we’ll collect both marine and non-marine fossils from the Upper Cretaceous. We’ll find plant material, shark teeth, crocodile bones and teeth (including possibly Deinosuchus), huge turtle scutes, and hopefully some dinosaur bones and teeth. Another site has Cretaceous fossil oysters, some with both valves attached, and crocodile bones. We’ll hopefully be able to also get to sites along the river that are Lower Pleistecene, Waccamaw formation for well-preserved shells. We’ll also go by cars to other locations for fabulous fossil shells. One site is Duplin formation (equal to Yorktown formation – but has tropical shells). There we will find millions of well-preserved shells, including huge horse conchs, buyscons, Arcinella arcinella also known as “spiny oysters”, and many other gastropods and bivalves. We’ll should also find a few small shark teeth here. We hope to go to at least one (hopefully more) shell pit. Some of the shell pits in the area are Waccamaw, others are Duplin. We recommend this trip for ages 10 and up. Spaces are extremely limited on this trip. The Cape Fear River must be low in order to do this trip. Cost: $250 per person. Cost does not include car transportation to the meeting sites, food or lodging. It does include the boat transportation. FOR MORE INFORMATION, OR TO REGISTER FOR THIS SPECTACULAR TRIP, E-MAIL CATHY YOUNG AT cathy@fossilandnaturetrips.com or call 610-209-0758. PRIVATE FOSSIL COLLECTING TRIPS and FOSSIL PROGRAMS! Now your group can go fossil collecting together as a group. This is great for a scout troop, homeschoolers group, school group, etc. We can also do birthday party fossil trips and fossil trips just for your family or friends. For more information, please e-mail cathy@fossilandnaturetrips.com or call 610-209-0758. I am also giving fossil programs for groups. I talk about different creatures and the time periods that they lived, while passing 25 - 50 real fossils for you to see up close and touch. I also bring a large container of sand full of fossils. The children use a fossil screen and trowel, and sift their own fossils to take home with them. Find out about our trips even before they are put on the website. Just e-mail cathy@fossilandnaturetrips.com , and we'll be happy to put you on our e-Newsletter list. We send e-Newsletters about every 2 weeks, informing you about our newest upcoming trips. |




