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In those warm tropical seas, early life proliferated amid the shallow-water reefs.Īt that long-distant time in earth history, Utah's now-mountainous terrain was actually the floor of a shallow sea where these early denizens of the deep existed in what was ostensibly an offshore estuary. He is well aware that back in the Middle Cambrian, this now mostly arid inland region was part of a great ocean shelf located off of Laurentia, the supercontinent which then lay near earth's equator. Indeed, Abbott revels not only in the history of the state's trilobites, but also in the geologic history of the state itself. Among the most notable of these new-breed enthusiasts is Terry Abbott, a full-time commercial fossil collector based in the small town of Delta, who considers himself “blessed” to be living in the midst of some of the most famous and abundant trilobite outcrops on earth. However, the Gunthers are far from alone in their appreciation and pursuit of Utah's amazing array of trilobites. In fact, Lloyd Gunther's son, Val, recently served as co-author of the well-received 2015 volume, Exceptional Cambrian Fossils From Utah. Indeed, the work of the Gunther clan has continued on unabated for more than 80 years, with new generations of the family still working these central Utah layers (and others throughout the state) on a regular basis. The Gunthers' efforts first helped discover and identify such species as Hemirhodon amplipyge, which can grow up to 13 centimeters in length, and Bolaspadella housensis, a diminutive trilo-type that rarely exceeds a centimeter in size. He frequently visited Utah between the years of 18, and it was Walcott who first named both the Wheeler and Marjum formations, noting the “alternating bands of thin-bedded limestone and calcareous shale” that characterized these fossil-rich outcrops.ĭespite Walcott's initial efforts, however, it wasn't until the pioneering work of local resident Lloyd Gunther and his family in the 1930s that the state's Middle Cambrian trilobite bonanza began to be fully explored and recognized.
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And while the Utes may have been the first to recognize the state's trilobites as something extraordinary, they certainly weren't the last.Īmong the prominent names that subsequently searched for these primordial relics throughout Utah's majestic landscape was the seemingly ubiquitous Charles Walcott, who also played an essential role in the discovery and exploration of both British Columbia's famed Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale and New York's State's renowned Ordovician-age Walcott-Rust quarry. Indeed, going back to the 18th Century - and perhaps even earlier - the native Ute tribes would find strange “animals of stone” (actually Elarathia kingii trilobites) lying on the ground, drill holes in their pygidia and wear these half-billion year old fossils around their necks as good luck talisman. The fact is that trilobite collecting in Utah enjoys a long and storied history. Ranging from the 510 million year old Middle Cambrian Wheeler shale through the 440 million year old Ordovician-age Fillmore formation, this mountainous western outpost brims with some of the most renowned and studied Paleozoic outcrops in the world. And while a number of these states can lay claim to being the most bountiful trilobite locale in the country, without question, nowhere across the face of North America are trilobites more prevalent than in the rugged state of Utah. Trilobites can be found from New York to California, with a majority of the states in between chiming in with either an abundance of material or perhaps only an occasional find or two. alone, Paleozoic deposits range from Lower Cambrian to Upper Permian, with many containing trilobites of various sizes, shapes and species. No, we're certainly not saying that making such a discovery is either easy or common. Look closely through the strata exposed by the next road cut you pass, or dig deep into the sedimentary outcrop near that local stream, and the possibility exists of finding evidence of these fossilized treasures literally in your own backyard. Though they generally remain rather elusive remnants of Earth's long-forgotten past, the fact is that these ancient arthropods are nothing less than pervasive. Trilobites can be found just about anywhere.