On 10 July, the APS made a return visit to the Pennsylvanian Age rocks of Walker County, Alabama. We had a very small group of intrepid fossils hunters willing to split rocks under Alabama's July sun. While "warm" it was not entirely unbearable and this time of year we will take that. The small group did manage to turn up some great fossils and mostly tetrapod trackways! Trackways like the one pictured above always make me pause to wonder what the little animal was thinking, it was just walking along and then, "squirrel!", he takes off in a different direction at a faster pace.
The next group of tetrapod trackways (impressions and counter-impressions) probably all came from the same slab. Look at the wonderful tail drag in each!
But that is not all of the tetrapod trackways, we found more on this day.
The next picture is of a single large Attenosaurus track, along with a few fern leaves and other plant fossils.
This site has excellently preserved ivertebrate trackways as well. These were more elusive this time however a few fine Stiaria trackways were found.
The next fossils representing the plant world and specifically are seeds, triganocarpus, from a seed fern. One was preserved and still mostly concealed by matrix in the normal compressed way, however one was preserved in 3 dimensions (see second photo). Very cool!
We hope to see everyone on a future field trip!