Fun Find In South Central Utah, USA

While trying to find an old friend in South Central Utah, I came across a guy who has a quarry in his back yard. He sells most of the material for road base. What is left is some nice rock that contains all types of cool aquadic life. He showed me starfish and shells in his retaining walls. He allowed me to gander through his pile of rock. I quickly found some interesting things there. He also showed me an area with Septarian Nodules. Picture 422 is a uncut nodule. We talked about a pay per day idea to put some of his neighbors who have lost their jobs to work. He invited me back anytime to go though his rock pile.

Happy Hunting!

Mike,

I think I see oysters in the first photo, or maybe other kinds of “clams.” The third photo looks like it has a coiled ammonoid cephalopod. The matrix seems to be limestone. Can you be more specific about where these came from?

I would guess they are Late Cretaceous in age (100-67 million years), but they are definitely marine. From what I can see, this material could be equivalent to the Greenhorn Limestone or limy portion of the Carlile Shale in eastern Colorado and Kansas, but that is a stretch in view of what little I can see here. That would be good material for road base.

Unfortunately, these pieces have no real value, but the better ones such as septarian concretions and ammonoids or other well-preserved fossils that are also well displayed on a slab could probably be sold for several dollars each in a curio shop or rock shop. I’d like to dig around through that stuff myself!

Norman,


The area is in Alton near the Orderville Serpentine Nodule pits. The pay per day idea was just about families or individuals coming out and going through the material to find fun stuff. The value is more in "Look What I Found" than any real dollar value. The guys I have taken out to the desert to dig for treasures spend hundreds of dollars in fuel to collect a few dollars in material. Once in a while a "real " discovery happens but most of the time it is just good clean fun. The Ammonoid is just a cast. If you would like to go out and look through the quarry, I think I can arrange it. I always try to give guys like that some material from another area to thank them for letting me look around. All I had at the time I went there was a model truck. So i gave him that.

I am not sure about the age but the whole area of Utah was covered by shallow seas during different time periods. Hard to believe on a hot summer day. It is amazing what you can find out here.