FOSSILGUY.COM

Here, Roy and I have a shootout at the OK quarry on Black Cat Mountain. The last man standing gets the trilobites.

"The quarry operations"
Black Cat Mountain is quarried by Robert Carroll, a fossil enthusiast to say the least. He carefully mines this mountain for its world class trilobites. Layers of limestone from the Haragan Formation are carefully excavated and stacked into piles. These piles are then searched for the trilobites. Later he preps them for sale at the Tucson Show.

This is the best find of the trip. It doesn't look like much now, but after it's prepped, this will be a beautiful Huntonia trilobite, one of the more sought after trilobites on Black Cat Mountain.

Searching for trilobite fossils

Splitting Rock - The Trilobites are found in the rock, usually when the rock is split, an outline of the bug is seen on both sides of the split. The rock is then glued back together and prepped.

Yes, the place was chalk full of creepy crawlies. We were warned to stay clear of rattle snake and scorpion, but no one told us of tarantula! I believe this one was guarding a trilobite.

Besides the creepy crawlies, there were some pretty cool wildlife. We saw a roadrunner... briefly (they are fast!), some neat looking lizards, and armadillo. The armadillo were curiously laying on the side of the road.. Perhaps they were resting.

Wrong Way Rob lifted a rock to find this lizard. Although small, he was ferocious and would attack anything near him!

Huntonia Trilobite Fossil

Another view of the Huntonia Trilobite

Another view of the Huntonia Trilobite

Prepped Phaciphacops Trilobite

Unprepped Dicranurus Trilobite Fossil

Unprepped Kettneraspis Trilobite

Unprepped Phaciphacops Trilobite