Walcott–Rust quarry
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The Walcott–Rust quarry, in
Herkimer County, New York Herkimer County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 60,139. Its county seat is Herkimer. The county was created in 1791 north of the Mohawk River out of part of Montgomery County. It is named ...
, is an excellent example of an obrution (rapid burial or "smothered")
Lagerstätte A Lagerstätte (, from ''Lager'' 'storage, lair' '' Stätte'' 'place'; plural ''Lagerstätten'') is a sedimentary deposit that exhibits extraordinary fossils with exceptional preservation—sometimes including preserved soft tissues. These f ...
. Unique preservation of
trilobite Trilobites (; meaning "three lobes") are extinct marine arthropods that form the class Trilobita. Trilobites form one of the earliest-known groups of arthropods. The first appearance of trilobites in the fossil record defines the base of the ...
appendages resulted from early consolidation (cementation) of the surrounding rock, followed by spar filling of the interior cavity within the appendages. The presence of so many well preserved trilobites in one location alone qualifies the beds as an exceptional trilobite site, but the beds are further distinguished as the source of the first trilobites for which appendages were definitively described.


Historical overview

By 1860 William Palmer Rust (1826–1897) and his father Hiram were actively excavating fossils from quarries on the family farm originally opened for building stone. 1870 saw
Charles Doolittle Walcott Charles Doolittle Walcott (March 31, 1850February 9, 1927) was an American paleontologist, administrator of the Smithsonian Institution from 1907 to 1927, and director of the United States Geological Survey. Wonderful Life (book) by Stephen Jay G ...
working a new trilobite locality in Upper Ordovician limestones on a creek near the Rust farm, where Walcott had recently moved. Walcott and Rust began to quarry the site with Walcott marrying Rust's daughter Laura Ann on January 9, 1872. In 1873 Walcott and Rust sold their collections to Louis Agassiz at the
Museum of Comparative Zoology A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...
,
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
. At this meeting between Walcott and Agassiz, Walcott mentioned that he had seen evidence of appendages and soft tissue, which Agassiz recommended he pursue. Discovery of soft body preservation at the Walcott–Rust quarry pre-dates Walcott's discovery of the more famous
Burgess Shale The Burgess Shale is a fossil-bearing deposit exposed in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, Canada. It is famous for the exceptional preservation of the soft parts of its fossils. At old (middle Cambrian), it is one of the earliest fo ...
lagerstätte A Lagerstätte (, from ''Lager'' 'storage, lair' '' Stätte'' 'place'; plural ''Lagerstätten'') is a sedimentary deposit that exhibits extraordinary fossils with exceptional preservation—sometimes including preserved soft tissues. These f ...
by 40 years. Walcott left the area and active working of the quarry in 1876 (his wife Lura Ann died of tuberculosis on January 23, 1876) although he returned for brief periods throughout his career. In 1876/7 Walcott published several papers on trilobite appendages, the first documentation of these features. In 1879 Walcott took up his appointment with the
USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, a ...
and sold the fossils he and Rust had collected between 1873 and 1879 to Alexander Agassiz at the
Museum of Comparative Zoology A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...
. Rust and his friends continued to extract and sell specimens from the quarry until Rust's death in 1897. It is estimated that over the years were excavated. The old fossil quarry site was reopened in 1990 by Thomas E. Whiteley (also involved in the rediscovery of
Beecher's Trilobite Bed Beecher's Trilobite Bed is a Konservat-Lagerstätte of Late Ordovician (Caradoc) age located within the Frankfort Shale in Cleveland's Glen, Oneida County, New York, USA.turbidite A turbidite is the geologic deposit of a turbidity current, which is a type of amalgamation of fluidal and sediment gravity flow responsible for distributing vast amounts of clastic sediment into the deep ocean. Sequencing Turbidites wer ...
s or storm layers. Fossils occur at the bases, tops and within a number of the storm units. Fossils represented in the Walcott–Rust quarry beds reflect a shelf community that developed during times of rather low net sedimentation and minimal bioturbation of the bottom. These communities were episodically smothered by sediment layers re-suspended by storms in shallower water.


Fossil fauna

Exquisitely preserved fossils, including at least 18 species of trilobites, have been documented. The four most common trilobites ''
Ceraurus ''Ceraurus'' is a genus of cheirurid trilobite of the middle and, much more rarely, the upper Ordovician. They are commonly found in strata of the lower Great Lakes region. These trilobites have eleven thoracic segments, a very small pygidium a ...
'', ''
Flexicalymene ''Flexicalymene'' Shirley, 1936. is a genus of trilobites belonging to the order Phacopida, suborder Calymenina and Family Calymenidae. ''Flexicalymene'' specimens can be mistaken for '' Calymene'', ''Gravicalymene'', '' Diacalymene'' and a fe ...
'', '' Isotelus gigas'', and '' Meadowtownella'' are found (complete or partially complete) throughout the deposit often associated with echinoderms. 22 of the 50 recognized beds were found to yield at least one complete articulated trilobite and/or echinoderm (primarily
crinoids Crinoids are marine animals that make up the class Crinoidea. Crinoids that are attached to the sea bottom by a stalk in their adult form are commonly called sea lilies, while the unstalked forms are called feather stars or comatulids, which are ...
). More specifically, the fauna includes
brachiopod Brachiopods (), phylum Brachiopoda, are a phylum of trochozoan animals that have hard "valves" (shells) on the upper and lower surfaces, unlike the left and right arrangement in bivalve molluscs. Brachiopod valves are hinged at the rear end, w ...
s, bryozoans, 11 described species of
crinoid Crinoids are marine animals that make up the class Crinoidea. Crinoids that are attached to the sea bottom by a stalk in their adult form are commonly called sea lilies, while the unstalked forms are called feather stars or comatulids, which are ...
s, one
paracrinoid Paracrinoidea is an extinct class of blastozoan echinoderms. They lived in shallow seas during the Early Ordovician through the Early Silurian. While blastozoans are usually characterized by types of respiratory structures present, it is not cl ...
, one rhombiferan, two " carpoids", two asteroids, one
ophiuroid Brittle stars, serpent stars, or ophiuroids (; ; referring to the serpent-like arms of the brittle star) are echinoderms in the class Ophiuroidea, closely related to starfish. They crawl across the sea floor using their flexible arms for locomot ...
, and one
edrioasteroid Edrioasteroidea is an extinct class of echinoderms. The living animal would have resembled a pentamerously symmetrical disc or cushion. They were obligate encrusters and attached themselves to inorganic or biologic hard substrates (frequently har ...
.Walcott–Rust quarry from the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard
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Taphonomy and exceptional preservation

One layer (the "''Ceraurus'' layer") yields specimens that are uniquely preserved with calcified appendages, forming the basis of Walcott's earliest and still classic papers which first documented
biramous The arthropod leg is a form of jointed appendage of arthropods, usually used for walking. Many of the terms used for arthropod leg segments (called podomeres) are of Latin origin, and may be confused with terms for bones: ''coxa'' (meaning hip, plu ...
limbs of trilobites. Trilobites appendages are preserved in specimens of ''Ceraurus'', ''Flexicalymene'', and ''Meadowtownella'' uniquely preserved as sparry calcite infilings. Exceptionally fine detail of the appendages was preserved and has undergone very little compaction (a contrast to other sites). This type of preservation is only apparent when a specimen is sliced and the cut surface is polished or a thin section made. Also, only those specimens which are partially enrolled show a significant amount of this type of preservation. For these reasons it is unlikely that this preservation would be obvious to anyone collecting trilobites. A sequence of events was necessary for this appendage preservation to take place. The trilobites that show the best soft tissue preservation were buried when partially enrolled inside the layer. The burial was in lime sediment and that may have buffered the micro-environment against any acidic products of bacterial metabolism. The surrounding rock must have consolidated very rapidly to allow the three-dimensional preservation. Organic matter made the closed micro-environment anaerobic; decay proceeded by sulfate reducing bacteria producing bicarbonate and sulfide byproducts (Allison, 1990). A slightly alkaline environment, saturated with carbonate, with bicarbonate build-up may have led to highly localized calcium carbonate precipitation. Pyrite formation, more common in such circumstances, may have been inhibited because of the small amount of iron in the carbonate sediment.


See also


Walcott–Rust quarry summary from Sam Gon III
*


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Walcott-Rust quarry Paleozoic paleontological sites of North America Ordovician paleontological sites Lagerstätten Trilobites of North America Geologic formations of New York (state) Geography of Herkimer County, New York Mining in New York (state) Quarries in the United States Buildings and structures in Herkimer County, New York Paleontology in New York (state) 1870 in paleontology