FOSSILS I HAVEN'T FOUND: TRILOBITES
  
Huntonia oklahomae, Dicranurus elegantus, and Homotelus bromidensis
I have yet to find a trilobite. This is somewhat ironic, since Oklahoma is known for fine and abundant specimens of Class Trilobita among fossil collectors and paleontogists, and trilobites are probably the most well known fossils among the general public after dinosaurs. The trilobites shown above were collected in the Arbuckle Mountains and Coal County in southern Oklahoma, and date to Devonian, Silurian, and Ordovician time (350 to 500 million years ago). That was before Tulsa time (the late Carboniferous, 325 to 286 million years ago). Trilobites first appeared during Cambrian "Explosion" 540 years ago when many new and diverse forms of life--sea life, no life on land yet--suddenly appear the fossil record. They were the first arthropods; other arthropods are insects and crustaceans. The last trilobites died in the mass extinction at the end the Permian 250 million years ago, when 90 percent of all species died off (much worse than the Cretaceous extinction which took out the dinosaurs). The trilobites had a good run of close to 300 million years, much longer than we'll last I assure you, and were diverse and dominant in the ancient seas for much of that time. Trilobites were one of the first organism to evolve complex compound eyes; some of them had a 360 degree field of vision, which may be one reason they survived for so long. They walked on the sea bottom, leaving tracks that sometimes are found fossilized, and some of them could roll up like a pill bug, and such species of trilobites are often found that way. Ordovician time was somewhat of a heyday for trilobites. By Tulsa time they had dwindled to one order, Proetida, but trilobites were still around, and as I said I haven't found one, at least not one that I have recognized as such. The images above are of fossils that have been beautifully and professionally cleaned and prepared for display, they don't look like that when they are first found. I am very much a beginner at preserving and cleaning fossils, it takes a great deal of patience and care and you can easily break or even destroy the fossil you are trying to save and enhance. If I ever find something really extraordinary I would take it to a real paleontogist to clean and identify it. I have read in papers published by the Tulsa Geological Society in the early 1970s that trilobites are to be found in Tulsa County, particularly in to the west of Tulsa near old Hwy. 51, and around Keystone Dam on the Arkansas River. So I offer my prayers to Our Lady of Fossils, and keep looking.
11:57:09 PM 
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