Tabulate coral
The KPS field trip to Taylorsville consisted of first visiting the spillway. This produced many nice Ordovician fossils including crinoids. Heading north of Taylorsville on Rt. 55, a roadcut exposes the Upper Ordovician Grant Lake Limestone (probably). There is one cut with countless well preserved Platystrophia brachiopods. Further north on Rt. 155, there is a roadcut exposing the Upper Ordovician Drakes Formation (Bardstown member). This formation yields beautiful tabulate coral heads, which when broken open, show white coral laced with orange dolomite or barite.
Calymene celebra trilobite
Photographs
The KPS field trip to Bardstown consists of first visiting the Silurian Laurel Dolomite outcrops near the I-64 exit to Rt. 150. This dolostone yields beautiful Calymene celebra trilobites that sparkle with tiny dolomite crystals. However, they must be broken out. The Laurel Dolomite is premier quarry rock, and you'll understand why when you try and break it! It requires safety glasses and a sledge hammer. If you like prison chain-gang work, you'll like mining these trilobites. A trip a few miles south down Rt. 150 brings you to an outcrop which exposes the Upper Ordovician Drakes formation (Bardstown member). Beautiful tabulate coral heads, which are sparkling pure white honeycomb when broken open, can be found here. Also, other Ordovician fossils, such as horn corals and brachiopods can be found here.
In excavated soils in the Bardstown area, silicified Devonian fossils can be found which originated in the Beachwood member of the Sellersburg Limestone. In many places, this rock layer has weathered away, but the resistant silica fossils remain in the soil. A good example is the spherical sponge Hindia, which can be picked uncrushed right out of the dirt. Also, pretty slabs of colonial rugose corals can be found.
Caryocrinites cystoid
Photographs
A KPS field trip once per year to Jeffersonville, Indiana is always fun. At the surface, clay between eroded (karst) Devonian North Vernon Limestone beds is found. This clay contains beautiful silicified brachiopods (Atrypa and Spinocyrtia) and occasional horn corals, clams, Phacops trilobites and crinoid calyces. Of particular note are the Atrypa brachiopods which can occasionally be found with the internal spiral lophophore support structures (brachidia) preserved. In addition, a couple of Atrypa brachiopods were found with predatory bore holes in the shells. Lower in the quarry, there are piles and ramps made from Silurian Waldron Shale. This shale is useless to the quarry, so they pile it up everywhere along roads, to make ramps, etc. Well preserved fossils have been found here. They include trilobites (Trimerus delphinocephalus, Glyptambon verrucosus, Calymene breviceps, Litotix armata, and Arctinurus occidentalis), crinoid calyxes (Eucalyptocrinites, Saccocrinus, and others), cystoids (Caryocrinites), eight different brachiopods, two different corals, fenestrate bryozoans, beautiful gastropods (Platyostoma niagarense), and the occasional clam. In addition, nice pyrite cubes can also be found.
Thanks go to Donald Mikulic for trilobite identifications.
