Monte Cristo Mine March 19 2014

The lease is now worked by us for the fossils contained with in the bell shale though the occassional piece of sphalerite, galena and pyrite are found. The shale (lower devonian) contains trilobites, corals, brachiopods and other marine species.
It is slow and demanding manual work - firstly to remove any overburden, usually a button-grass/heath mix, extract rock in sizeable pieces and then further reduce the rock with crack-hammers, hoping to reveal some hidden fossil within. Whilst no complete specimens of the trilobite (digonus zeehanensis) have yet been found, we plan to continue the search.