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Note: This is an old trip report: This fossil site is closed to collecting.

Fossil Hunting in St. Clair for White Fossil Ferns

On a cool October morning, I left for one of the many abandoned strip mines near St. Clair, PA. Many of these excavated strip mines are now used for ATV's, hunting, and shooting ranges by locals. The area was almost turned into a land fill. I was not going there for any of those reasons. I was here because of the unique fossils found in the Llewellyn Formation, which surfaces in a few abandoned strip mines in the area.

The Llewellyn Formation:

This is a Pennsylvanian age formation (precisely 300 to 308 myo) that contain sequences of Sandstone, Siltstone, Shale, Conglomerate, and Anthracite Coal (according to the USGS). Each layer represents a different depositional environment. In particular, the shale was probably formed from sedimentation of a muddy bottomed coastal lagoon. During storms, plant material in the coastal bogs (which were abundant during this time period) washed offshore into the lagoon. Many of these plant fragments settled onto the low oxygen muddy bottom and were covered by a rain of fine black sediment. The ferns became fossilized in the black shale layers.

Unique Fossils:

Fern fossils in shale near coal seams are incredibly common. However, what makes this site unique is what happened later. During fossilization, Pyrite replaced allot of the organic plant material, giving the fossils an orange color. However at some later time, through oxidation and replacement reactions, the Pyrite was replaced by a white substance called Pyrophyllite in sections of the fern laden shale. This caused many of the orange fern fossils to turn white. This is a very rare occurrence. So, today, the Llewellyn formation contains unique fossils, white ferns preserved on black shale. Anytime you see a white fern on a slab of black shale in a natural history museum, chances are, it's from St. Clair.

The Trip:

I arrived to a busy place, there were a few other groups of collectors already there looking for promising fossils that Mother Nature did not yet erode away. I scouted around, found a promising spot, and proceeded to extract some larger fern plates. It's easy to get fragments of ferns, it's much more difficult to get a larger section, as the shale is brittle. After a few hours, I left the place with some promising fern plates.

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Images and Fossils Found

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Recommended Books

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Trilobite: Eyewitness to Evolution
by Dr. Richard Fortey, 2001

Dr. Fortey is a famous natural history writer from the British Museum of Natural History. He brings trilbites to life in this well crafted and enjoyable narrative. He merges science and history together to show us the big picture about trilobites. It's a nice read for anyone interested in Trilobites.

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