Joe is already off to a really good start going through some of this rock some cute
fishies oh and there is a fish right there too first big fish of the trip oh yeah i see
the vertebrae right there there's a fish and right there's a fish too see its vertebrae
underneath its tail, yep. cool! where we are now only about 10 to 15 feet of the green
river formation is well laminated so each one of these layers represents a different
period of deposition and you would have had these micritic limestone oozes that would
have rained from the top of the lake and would have settled on the bottom and that ooze is
what preserves these fish and now 52 million years later Joe and I are here to try and
dig them up. right now we are putting the chisel right in the middle of the slab to
try and start a run so this crack this is forming right here that's a run we want to
follow so we're going to try and follow this around this whole slab... what did you get.
look at that fish! oooohhhh that is as nice as these diplos come out deep red color too
so we're talking about how Joe does find thousands of fish but 90% of those or even more aren't
in good quality they are disarticulated their in pieces their really really poorly preserved
this is what you're looking for when you're looking for fossil fish why are you talking
down on my fish im sorry its not cool I work hard for these... I don't appreciate that
at all get that out of my face alright this one is ready to peel. yoop - a little dorsally
compressed fish - we call them jumpers - jumpers - cause they look like they're jumping - i
didn't notice it at first but we have another fish undercover right here too so we have
a lot of rock to go through but when we find something nice or extraordinary we will make
sure to let you guys in on it - this is something you do not see everyday that's about the prettiest
one I've ever found its got great orange red color to it - so this is a male stingray you
can tell because these little claspers they use that to hold on to the females when they're
mating because they don't have arms they're about the thickness of a couple sheets of
paper when they get out to these rays so it's really hard to find them. they usually show
up in cross sections of the tail and the little tinee tiny hints of ray bones in the rock
but this one split right on it hence why its a nice positive and negative you want to tell
me what happened when you found this i screamed a lot and then all the guests in the quarry
came running over to see what i found i said oh yeah I found a stingray you found a stingray
that's nut no that's a stingray apparently someone found a fossil turtle while we weren't
her so we're walking over to the storage container to check it out what are we looking at Joe
oohh stingray big stingray its a nice one it comes from the upper rock. really ? it
looks like scab layer almost with the peel wo there's been some interesting stuff found
so far that's not a trionix that's not a softshell, there's the head, the feet are down here its
faded though where's that book? Its one of these, right there? Maybe? Pond turtle? River
turtle? Not softshell. No not softshell. It's not a long tail one is it? Must be one of
these rare ones? One of the pond turtles or river turtles? that'll look awesome when prepped
out that's cool now there are two reasons why that turtle is really cool the first is
that its just a turtle turtles in this formation are you'd think they're common but any kind
of vertebrate fossil from a mammal or reptile is super rare, the second was that was actually
a river turtle. so most turtles out here are the lake turtles because this was a giant
lake that actually came from one of the rivers that fed this lake and so fish and turtles
and animals from those rivers are super rare that's got me excited to do some more looking
let's find some more fish and fossils Joe just salvaged something really unique from
the garbage pile that is the imprint to a palm tree palm frond from a palm tree you
think you'll go ahead and pain that to enhance that and let people know where all the different
plant matter is. No all my fossils are 100% natural the only negative about this quarry
is there isn't as much kerogen so the color is completely lost in this palm frond fossil
but in the 18" layer that would be nice black beautiful streaks but Joe might be able to
make it look nice by yeah I'll paint the center veins brown and paint the rest of it a kind
of off brown color just to enhance it we're pretty use to seeing those in Florida, that's
crazy to think that those palms were out here in Wyoming 52 million years ago its hard to
believe that the desert quarry i am currently walking in use to be a lush tropical lake
52 million years ago full of crocodiles, turtles, birds, palm trees, you name it... sometimes
all you find guys are coprolites or otherwise known as fossil s***, it was probably left
by a turtle or something that's an impressive piece of poop. that's good s*** now this exactly
how you want to find a fossil fish this is a mioplosus covered with a thin layer of calcite,
calcium carbonate rock, limestone and we can tell that its got a gaping mouth which would
be really cool if its got an aspiration and it swallowed a fish and is dying on it but
everything underneath this is going to be really well preserved and Joe's going to prep
it out and make it look beautiful hey buddy are you tired? they call me Joey big slabs
cause I slab big slabs *laughs maniacally* you do slab big slabs Mr. Joey big slabs you're
about to pass out when the plates get this thin it can be really difficult to pop them
up but this one is actually behaving pretty well despite being so thin let's hope there
is a fish or something underneath it that's a little bit too thin there Jon any fish you
find any fish you find are going to look like junk also there's a fish right there by your
left hand inn it there right there. YUP. oooh you look so tan Joe call me Joey big fish
because i find big fish - so that's the mio from earlier - they call me joey bigger fish
- and here's the Mio Joe just found - because I find bigger fish - that's a big fish this
one lost the uh pectoral spines and the gill plate on this side but you can cut that out
and glue transfer it back in there. maybe there's not that much missing that's worth
doing that with you can see the impression of the joe pretty well from here, put your
hand up for scale, that's a big fishy our neighbors just found a really nice Mioplosus
third good one of this trip that is awesome good split too any missing the tiniest bit
of the tail, that'll look really pretty if prepped correctly that's awesome congrats
man - thank you - that's a big Mio too, he's got his mouth open, I can see how this could
get addicting yeah like I just got to go one more, yeah one more, I shouldn't have showed
that to you, he did that's where he said try digging here, first one nothing, next one
first split. I had some people that I did that to before I told them to dig there, they
took it down, took it down, took it down, took it down, they got little fish dips and
stuff like that they stopped just didn't go far enough. Congrats again guys, that's a
nice piece oh wow black and white one puddle layer might be in this block so you're at
the base of the quarry right now. the thin red line, yeah right here, oh yeah i see it
and somewhere in this block there might be a puddle layer with a whole bunch of little
tinee tiny fish that would be cool if we can pull that up it might not be here because
its you know a puddle they're not 100% guaranteed to be there we got a big ole slab we need
to lift, ready? set it that way, that way? fishie right there, yeah down in that very
bottom stuff we'll never get it out, big ole heavy son of a b****, heavy enough, you want
to work that rock or you want to work that rock. uh it doesn't matter to me, ill just
work this one I already got it, I kind of want that one for the puddle layer, oooohh
- ohh - my rock, I'll roshambo you for it, what's roshambo? *Grunts in pain* No no no
no no no so this thin red line right here that you can follow all the way across that
marks the very bottom of the split fish quarry there's a better view of it that's what we
are trying to get down to, there's usually big knightias in this layer right above this.
Usually. There's one of this big knightias we were talking about. Oohhh and a nice Knightia
right underneath, we've got a blown up ray over here that was in all this eroded stuff
but that's luck of the draw can't always find them super nice, here are all those pieces
to that ray that was in the eroded stuff its a real shame but that's how it happens sometimes
so a lots actually there we're missing the very front and probably a piece to the tale,
not there's the tail - you got the cross section - it ends in here - can i see that cross section
again - that little cross section right there is the cross section to a ray - really hard
to spot those sometimes - we've reached the very bottom of the quarry, we've found a lot
of really nice fish this trip, but we're done for summer - all that's left is to pack up,
get home, and some prep some of these fish for you guys. we have made it safely home
and we're about to show you all some of our favorite finds from hunting the split fish
quarry in Wyoming this year, what we got Joe - we got a turtle - that's a turtle - a Baptimes
wyomingensis turtle, its shell was ripped apart so I had to piece the shell back together
and restore a few scutes but that's what gives it its 3 dimensional look, usually they are
completely flat but this one is pretty unique in that you have all these free standing spurs
and the skull is peaking out right here, you can see its nose right there, tips of it's
feet this over here is a big Phareodus, its about 2 feet long. Jon actually found this
one its one of the few I actually let him find so generous of you, yeah its a nice fish
its worth a decent amount of money if you ever paint it in but he's too lazy to do that,
I like it natural well pieced together natural I like it jigsaw, its kind of cool to show
what wasn't there and what was cause this piece was in what 17 pieces when we found
it, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen
sandwiched together at least thirteen, probably more. Because this had to be glued back in
all of this had to be glued back together and clamped and then I cleaned down into it
so yeah it was in quite a few places and we didn't show it on camera because there wasn't
really much to see besides the cross sections, but it's one of my favorite fish and I think
its really cool to see how it was put back together and how Joe prepped it. Oh, I didn't
film prepping it, I'm not going to show people how i do that stuff are you kidding me then
they'll be able to it. No, pay me to do it. Did you pay me for that? I don't have a receipt.
Pay me. This is a palm, they're just colorless imprints in this layer, so I filled it in
with a little diluted brown paint and slapped a couple of fish in it like this priscacara
and this diplomystus it turned out really nice, yeah. You can see we've got modern palms
here. they look, you know. not that different. this would have been a pretty big palm. these
palm fronds get up to 10 feet from the base where it attached to the tree up to the tips,
they call it the petiolio, Petiole, its not an Italian pasta dish, its a bio-logical term.
Dummy. But, yeah this turned out really well. You have the complete eye orbital a lot of
the teeth, but all this was just completely sheared in half so all along here has all
been glued back in I love that the pectoral fins though are down you can see how large
they were, its a beautiful fish. Really fun trip - yeah, too bad you can't go this year.
I know. Introducing Joey B digital shorts, no probably not Jon will scrap that idea once
he sees how terrible they are, if you guys enjoyed this video and you want to see more
of Joe and I in the future please subscribe to the channel and as always keep on digging
science, tell em that I'm trying to sell the turtle - oh you want to sell the turtle - if
you want to buy this turtle, you can email Joe his email is on the screen right now and
linked in the description below, budget turtle not even all that, well, its worth a decent
amount of money, it's still worth a lot, its not scientifically valuable like we thought
because the carapace was all ripped apart, if it had been laid back together perfectly,
it would have been the most complete Baptimes, but it just didn't work out that way. Oh well,
is that for sale too? That palm? Yeah, or are you keeping that, it looks good up on
the wall but I mean if someone gives me the right amount of money for it.... everything
is for sale