so yesterday was our first day in the quarry we spent most of it cleaning up
you can thank Joe for that and in the cleaning process we did get some nicer
fish over here you can see a nice diplo right there another diplo some
pretty knightias and then Joe got a couple of Phareodus which are in that
block and then a big 15 inch Mioplosus so gonna spend another full day digging
it up finding some stuff Joe what do you have oh my god that is beautiful nice
positive and negative I think the rest of its going in in that corner let me
take a look at that corner right there yeah see how the ripples in this rock go
like that yeah I see Center rippled with the
concentric Rings so the rest of its gonna be in two
pieces right in that in that crease right there it's gonna look so nice
- yep once it's all put together and that gorgeous dark brownish red color because
it's right by the bottom of the quarry and should have a full positive and
negative of it nice nice you know what the shame is look at the
mortality later blank blank there's one fish looks like it's undercover on the
back of that end that is a pretty Phareodus look at those little teeth nice
dark chocolate brown color you got fish its a shame it's split right on the
face like that and left the body and tail on that side yep
oh well it'll make a good positive and negative
Wow that is really cool that's really cool again another nice positive and
negative yep it's day three that we're gonna be digging here in Kemmerer Wyoming
in the Green River Formation not exactly luxurious living standards I've
modified my dad's expedition to be able to sleep in but it is definitely got a
good view you see way in the distance there's still snow on some of those
peaks but we're gonna get back out there hopefully find something else really
nice so stay tuned in case gotta wake up we've been making a lot of progress with
this rock there have been plenty of great fish Mioplosus right there so
this is really cool Kim one of the other diggers here was thinning down a plate
with two fish on it and you've got on this side a fish here and while
he was thinning it down he found something nice there's a beautiful little Pharo
it's gonna be a beautiful Pharo when you finish prepping it Kim Congrats
It peeled right on it it left everything here yeah all those
stingers broke off that's pretty incredible still Kim Thank You
Kim strikes again really awesome Puddle layer assemblage lots and lots lots
of fish that would have been a nice Mio too oh well this might not look
like anything special but this is literally a cool-ass **** one of the
rarer fish in the Green River Formation and whatever animal this was a big
turtle or Croc it ate a gar and you can see it really well right there for that
one but there are gar scale all throughout this poop you can kind of see
them up in here but that's pretty cool and really rare nice very nice so we're
nearing the end of the day over here and I just got a pretty fish
it is a pretty big diplo probably around a foot and that'll look nice it
came out in a couple pieces this right here is where the the rock with the tail
but that should prep out nice nearing the end of the day hey lose anything
somewhere in this four foot
pile of tailings tails on the tailings Joe hmm
so earlier I mentioned but the views that here are pretty beautiful well even
from the crapper it's pretty nice and there's no one out here so you can do
your poo and well have a view if you want to talk about something really cool
I was not expecting to split this rock and get that beautiful leaf from it I
ahh thats so cool never really know what's gonna come out of these layers pretty
happy with it
that is and Aesineops, call it mystery fish because the family it comes from is
fairly poorly understood it's a better side
I came out beautifully on the Ash layer Joe how rare is that it's pretty
incredible personal collection bro yep first new collection that's awesome
found another ray and that is always so cool to see them come out it's gonna
take quite a bit of prep the rest of its going into the wall where Joe's playing
around it cool you can see right here vertebrae and then the disc is coming
out looks like that is covered and buried though
rays over here but it looks like the majority of it to be in this block
very cool right her I'll go ahead and start taking
out that block okay so they're currently working on freeing up some rock with the
backhoe and this huge crocodile tooth just dumped out of the wall see if I can't
get the camera to focus on it that thing is big and beautiful it would
have been one mean animal start our fresh day hopefully we'll find some cool stuff
wish us luck more hunting to do this day 11 of 20 days
whoo
it's on this ash plate that tail right there that's the tail of a ray and
they're trying to find the rest of it in the wall
just pointing at the barb in the tail of the Stingray a lot of nice fish on that
plate hopefully they can grab it
monster d9 in the background working
hopefully we find it that's so cool that's a penny for scale a couple of
German tourists yesterday found this baby little ray that is absolutely adorable
good lord its so cute
okay so negative so I'm splitting rock and I see this nice outline here this but oh
yeah that is a juvenile Pharol see if you can see the teeth its focusing on them
that is a cool fish yeah look at those teeth
piranha so cool well that is bright hey Joe splitting
his rock rock is cool and it's covered up so we got the vertebrae coming down
and that will prep out nice little piranha so it looks like this pair of
fish have been best buddies for a very long time open this small rock and we
got this pair of cool crossed fish Joe's over there beating up on the rock nice
diplo too get it Joe
so we're over across the hill at the other quarry and we got a rock x-rayed that
we think has a bird and if you look right here you've got finger bone finger
bone and right there is the claw and you've got long bones right here for the
limbs and you got another limb right here there might be more but we're not
sure there's the culprit Rock no cross-sections there that side that side
and it looks like from the x-ray there's something coming all the way up to here
oh my goodness I had no idea that those would come out that nice Joe it turned
out nice it took almost 15 hours what did you use to prep it? a needle in a stick
and prepared it under about 70 X magnification and these are bird
legs right yeah they're from some sort of wading bird because of the length of
this bone but I haven't determined which one yet some sort of early Eocene
wading bird that is so rare and beautiful the lake (green river formation) that these come from
is one of the few places that preserves anything that falls into it so these
birds would have washed in from the shore and been preserved in the
limestone sediments in the middle of the lake even so they're ridiculously rare
that's cool and then there might be a stingray in here well there probably is
there's a cross section right up here you can see the stingray coming out and a
stinger coming out and maybe a vertebrae but we're not 100% sure so this is Joe's
stingray and you can see the vertebrae line coming down getting larger and
larger and the center of the disc is gonna be right around this area god
that's so cool thank you so much doc for letting us do this this is awesome
stingray right there cool so we are back in Florida and Joe has spent 10 hours
putting together this beautiful ray I cannot believe that he found this simply
from the cross-section of the Stinger right there and then we got it x-rayed
brought it back to Florida and this madman made a beautiful piece of art
well to be fair nature made the art he just perfected it I exposed the art you
exposed the art yeah and who do you think put the tail back on
you put the tail back on yeah and I made it so you can put it up on the wall -
whoa he is a multi faceted Renaissance man that's amazing that detail goodness so
we're back in Florida where it's hot and miserable oh my goodness and so Joe's
taking me into his fossil shed to see some of these beautiful fish after
being prepped little ray oh yeah whoo what do we have here buddy
these are some of my better ones this is a mioplosus with a little leaf next to it
and it's on a layer with some volcanic ash that I've left on top of it that
kind of comes in a diagonal straight through it and I've framed it nicely
that's cool and that's a big piranha it's about 2 ft long it's a Phareodus encaustus
funny when we were there and we were finishing up hunting I was so ready to
be back in Florida back-breaking work like Joe's put in so much effort in
this and I was there the whole time and I know what it's like now but now that I'm
back in Florida all I want to be doing is finding more fish like oh this is
just set up you can see he started prepping this fish right here I got the jaw done
and then I started to find how deep the body was yeah Joe has to put a lot of
work in under this how many hours do you think would go into a fish like that
probably 9 or 10 more yep I was an awesome trip really enjoyed hanging out
with Joe and going out west and doing something really different and awesome I
can't wait to do it hopefully in the future again
but thanks so much for watching guys make sure to like follow subscribe and
thank you take care