Spring 2025; South Carolina, New York & Northern and Southwestern-Ontario
- StormbedPaleo
- Jul 9
- 10 min read
After a harsh and seemingly never-ending winter, it’s been an intense start to the 2025 dig season. As usual, it’s been awhile since my last blog but hopefully I can make up for it with some diversity in the localities I have visited so far this year and some of the finds within.
As soon as the snow melted here in SW Ontario I was out to my home range of Lambton Shores region hunting for my favorite asteropyge trilobite, Greenops widderensis. Due to the late spring, there was still quite a bit of snow and ice on those first trips but my impatience was at a fever pitch to get digging again.
This relatively small band of middle Devonian strata still has a few surprises in it. With a focus digging on certain layers of the Widder formation, I’ve seen some real rarities come out. I’ve collected some beautiful Greenops of course but I’ve also split on some of the much rarer Eldredgeops trilobites. One of these had a a close association with a Greenops trilobite, something I’ve been looking for since my first split of this formation.
Unlike the phacops trilobites found a mere 3 hours away in New York State, these Ontario versions are a light, Caramilk-brown color. Due to the higher incidence of pyrite, they often have some interesting color spotting and, in one rare case from last month, nearly fully pyritized.
The above plate is a stunning example of both prone and enrolled specimens.
Despite there being many other species of trilobites in this formation, complete specimens are incredibly rare and mostly isolated to the Hungry Hollow layers. Harpidella, Dipluera, Greenops (a different species from the Widder), Basidechenella, Phacops iowensis southworthii, Eldredgeops, Crassiproetus, Bellacartwrightia to name a few. Despite their potential, these HH layers are a high energy reef deposit and take a special kind of patience. Muddy, hard to see and difficult to process, it’s a game of mental fortitude to continue to properly dig these layers. I refer to the digging of these layers as “a real slopfest”. For those who put the time in and embrace the slopfest, some great finds can be had.
The Widder formation also produces some truly excellent cephalopod fossils, almost always preserved in solid iron pyrite. The most common finds are small bactrites, Tornoceras and the straight-shelled Dolorthroceras. The rarest cephalopod (by far) is the Agoniatites vanuxemi. This unmistakably-shaped cephalopod is thought to be one of the intermediary forms between the goniatites and the much younger and well-documented groups of ammonites. Here’s a pic of one found this season by my close friend and dig companion, Mark Pepper and prepared by me in the lab.
This is the largest and best preserved one I have personally seen to come from out of the Widder!
Without a doubt, the rarest find in the Widder this season was, what appears to be, a complete (or nearly so) placoderm fish. The photos below are of the part and counterpart unprepared as I haven’t had the chance to properly prepare it yet. A rare beast indeed. Though I am sorely lacking in Devonian fish knowledge, it’ll be fun to find out what species this is.
One other find I feel is noteworthy is this Phyllocarid mandible. I adore these fossils as they look like bizarre, Halloween-store dentures. Phyllocarids are large Devonian shrimp and their mandibles are typically not found with the Phyllocarid itself. They are also known from the Silica shale in Ohio. This specimen likely belongs to Echinocaris.
No trip to the Widder is complete without a few Greenops finds (a fine specimen is pictured below). For those unfamiliar with Greenops they are a hot rodded phacopid with genals, tail spines and sharp pleural tips, Greenops is an impressive genus of trilobites and the widderensis species described from SW Ontario has world-class preservation. During their juvenile phases they even have axial spines to protect them from predators while they’re small. I’ve found a couple nice juvenile specimens this spring with this feature.
During the many trips out to the Widder formation and with the water so high, Mark and myself brought the StormBoat out of dry-dock (Mark’s garage). Paddling downstream made access to some of the washouts considerably easier. The washouts are a great place to collect mucrospirifiers and pieces of coral. The coral is silicified and I’m currently experimenting with cutting and polishing slices on my wet saw and buffing wheel. This week I made some guitar picks (I’m also a professional musician, probably evident in my non-academic descriptions) which actually look and even sound great. We documented quite a bit of one of these trips and it may be released as our first YouTube video in story format on our channel which will be called ‘Understories’. The channel will feature fossil trips, herping expeditions and insect and frog hunts in Peru. There’s only so many hours in the day though and adding another time-intensive, creative project may not be feasable during dig season.
The next stop for me was to visit my good friends in Summerville, South Carolina for a week of digging, diving and performing as a musician. It may not be surprising that I rarely get to blend my two passions/careers as live music performance and fossil collecting are mutually exclusive activities. In this case, MayFest, an adult day camp put on by Palmetto Fossil Excursions, provided the perfect opportunity. Digging for shark teeth all day at their 100 acre sandpit then playing music at night was, as always, a lot of fun. The band I play with down there was christened ‘Chum Bucket’. The reason for this was a band cancelling over inclement weather last year, so we threw together a last second lineup of myself, drummer Jason Benton and PFE mentor and all-around awesome guy, Mark Bunce as a quick fix. Turns out we have some chemistry so we’ve made it a bit of a thing!
Mayfest is also a great social gathering as I’ve gotten to know many of the regulars who attend the event. Anytime that a killer Great White, Megalodon or something special is found, everyone gathers around to appreciate the find (and the finder). Some notable finds were excellent serrated GW’s, Killer Makos and an incredibly rare walrus tusk! It’s a great community that these events have built up and the camaraderie is strong. The owners of PFE, Josh and Skye Basak, have done an incredible job of building up the confidence and competence of hundreds of new collectors that come to SC every year in search of “their tooth”.
Phase 2 of this trip, once the last of the campers had left the 100 acre pit, was to get diving. Shark tooth diving in South Carolina is done in the river systems with an eye on the outgoing and incoming tides. This is Black Water diving, an extremely hazardous activity that’s not for the faint of heart. Visibility is measured in inches, currents are powerful and unpredictable and marine life can occasionally get a little too close for comfort.
I have been lucky to dive with skilled commercial tooth diver, Dean Rogers. Dean has a strong connection to the work and is focused, professional and a damn good diver and tooth hunter. In addition to diving again with Dean, I got to dive with my friends Josh, Skye and Dustin as well which was great as we’ve only previously done land digs together.
On the second dive day I found my biggest tooth ever, at land or sea, a 6-1/4” upper front Meg tooth that was a euphoric experience. The dive started like any other, gearing up on the boat as dolphins and sea turtles popped up to see what we were up to. Descending the anchor line as the shards of sunlight faded into the gloomy brown-black waters. On the bottom now in the strong current, silt, mud, shrimp, crabs and the occasional toadfish appear and vanish in the weak beam of my head-mounted flashlight. Visually I want to compare it to being inside of a hurricane (or a vacuum cleaner). It’s an alien landscape of rocks, slime, bones and if you’re lucky, shark teeth. Halfway through my dive I lifted up a large flat rock, prepared to throw it and noticed the iconic root shape of a big Meg. Cheering underwater ensued. Back on the boat, Dean was as excited as I was and put the tooth on callipers confirming the size. Everyone at PFE made me feel like family when we all went out for dinner as I had now joined “The 6 inch club”.
NOTE: As I write this section I’m 30,000 feet in the air on my way back to Charleston, SC. Josh is picking me up from the airport, boat in tow, and we’re heading to the first dive site shortly after that!
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The events of this current trip will be documented another time provided anyone actually reads these things 😂
I generally don’t keep too many of my personal finds, one of the pitfalls of being in a fossil business. In the case of these megalodon teeth though, my 6” tooth sits proudly on a custom whalebone stand (Made by Dustin at PFE) in my living room. I have also kept my first complete SCUBA Meg tooth which is a respectable 4-1/2” long, serrated killer that sports beautiful colors like burled walnut.
I think the best way to describe the diving is to liken it to being on another planet. As soon as your mask dips below the surface a deep gloom surrounds you, fading to black within a few inches of descent on the anchor line. In blackwater diving it’s advisable to wear a helmet with a light affixed to it which frees up your hands for digging and/or scouring the surface for teeth and bones. The current is often quite strong and sometimes a screwdriver or other implement is needed to keep yourself in place as you hunt. The idea is to work against the current, working away from the boat as a safety measure (ascending behind the boat is extremely dangerous as the current will take you away and surface swimming against it is impossible). On the bottom it’s all about working the gravel and clay layers, just as if on land, with the exception of being able to see very well (or at all in many cases). Pawing around for triangles in the dark is one way I can’t help but think of it. Brail Diving is an alternate term that accurately describes it as well.
Since the water is salt, there’s quite the diversity of life crawling around on the bottom. All kinds of shrimp, crab, flounder, fish, pipe-horse and other critters can be seen going about their business. One of the coolest (and creepiest) things I came across was a pair of mating horseshoe crabs. The female of the pair was absolutely massive and had to be at least 24” long. She even had barnacles. Another time I disturbed a large mantis shrimp from its burrow. Watching it crawl off I was grateful that it didn’t decide to attack my hand! On the surface, it’s common to see pods of dolphins racing past the boat. I’ve even seen a small Bonnet-head shark hunting at the surface. Speaking of sharks, It’s hard not to think about them, especially since I’m looking for the teeth of their ancestors. Many large shark species feed and hunt (and possibly give birth) in these salt water lakes including Bull, Tiger and even Great Whites. In my experiences diving with sharks, they aren’t particularly interested in divers but it’s always spooky on ascent and descent to know they’re close by, interested or not!
Once the trip was over, I said goodbye to my South Carolina fossil family, spent a few days at home then headed to upstate New York for Penn Dixie Fossil Park's DWTE (Dig With the Experts) event in the Blasdell/Hamburg area. I had such a great time volunteering last year, I decided to do it again. The event turnout was solid with well-over 200 guests showing up to hunt Devonian trilobites. For those unfamiliar with it, a large excavation takes place months beforehand at the park and large piles of Smoke Creek formation rock are arranged/laid out for guests to easily split. Chances of finding high quality material and access to volunteer 'Experts' provide a learning opportunity for guests. Like the other volunteers, my job was to help people learn how to split the rock, ID finds and cut pieces out of larger blocks. In addition, I helped a few dozen people get their finds ready for preparation service. This fall I’ll be shipping out the finished pieces once the field season starts winding down. As far as finds go, I saw a few nice phacops multi-plates, a number of excellent Greenops barbari and a few Bellacartwrightia trilobites. Many nice single prone Eldredgeops were found as well. All in all the event went great and I think some new trilobite addicts were forged.
Immediately after New York, I met up with my buddy Mark and we headed straight up to Northern Ontario. This was to be the first Silurian dig of 2025 as the snow had only recently melted. It was a mixed trip with Mark and I working on his cottage and also spending full, 11 hour workdays in the quarry.
After splitting a literal ton of rock we racked up some good finds of rielaspis, Thalassocystis and some other of the more common things to be found here. On the rarer end of things we found a beautiful, perfect Rielaspis specimen, a reasonably large calymnid (likely Diacalymene), an enrolled Stelckaspis/Rielaspis plate and some crinoid odds and ends. The most exciting find was a large sea scorpion, the first we have ever seen in 5 dig seasons. A significant find. More on that some other time.
It’s always a tough day in the prep lab after a northern trip, much like Eastern Quebec material, a lot gets tossed in the garden after a few seconds under air abrasion. The levels of swearing and mutterings in the Stormbed lab rise sharply during this period of lab checks. The Earlton formation is a high energy reef deposit so quality is tough to achieve.
Fine specimens from the quarry can often be fairly pricy, this isn’t due to greed, but the actual reality of how many hours of work is required to find something of quality not to mention the prep-time.
These Earlton fm trilobites are labor intensive, the Diacalymene alone took around 10 hours in the lab. Split equally between part and counterpart, I had to glue and clamp both sections before working down from the top.
That just about catches up my spring-season. Hopefully I'll have some new stuff to report on soon and elaborate on other pieces like the sea scorpion and Devonian fish. As always, check out the latest finds from my trips on the 'fossils for sale' page. There's photos and videos of specimens to be checked out whether you buy fossils or just want to see some cool stuff in macro photography. You can also contact me with requests or questions through the website as well. Thanks for reading!
Mike Meacher - Stormbed Paleontological (finished) July 9th, 2025
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