The Silurian Experience.
Announcement: The Caleb quarry property and quarry operations have changed hands and the new owners have closed the quarry off to outside visits and digging activities. Sadly this website will not be associated with the quarry operations any longer and will now try to focus as a gathering place for Rochester Shale information and research. When I was working on the Silurian Experience book it was very difficult finding updated information on names and background about the specimens being discovered. I hope that this site can continue to assist the community with as much current information as I can be made aware of. If you have any information you feel needs to be displayed here please send me a note and I can create a fitting page for the information.
The Silurian Experience book is still available. The hard copy is in very short supply and the spiral version has a decent supply left. The last of the hard copies are selling for $75 each and the spiral version is selling for $55 each. Both have free shipping.
For over twenty years a small group of dedicated fossil enthusiasts had been operating a fossil recovery project near Middleport, New York. The goal was to promote the science of paleontology and to provide specimens to members of the professional, educational and amateur fossil community.
This location has been important in the understanding of the Rochester Shale, and Silurian paleobiology, for some time. Carlton Brett first explored a nearby local creek, collecting bulk samples for his PhD dissertation in the late 1970's. James Eckert and Denis Tetreault discovered and excavated the echinoderm lagerstatten in 1981 and the Arctinurus beds in 1982 in that same creek during their research on the Rochester Shale. The Smithsonian Institution became involved in 1990 and completed excavation of what was accessible. Several specimens from that project are currently on public display in the Smithsonian's paleontology hall. Following that work, paleontological attention shifted away from the limited natural exposures along the creek, over to what would become the Caleb Quarry.
In 1989, a local industrial company needed a non-porous clay. This special clay was located nearby on a twenty acre parcel of land owned by Brent and Rose Caleb. The Calebs agreed to allow the clay to be excavated from their property. In return they would be left with two large ponds.
After excavating soil and clay to a depth of approximately nine feet, solid bedrock was encountered, forcing the excavation project to go wider rather than deeper. In time, over nine acres of the Rochester Shale formation was exposed. Soon after the clay removal project ended, the Calebs allowed excavation of fossils from the bedrock. A local group, Ray Meyer, Gene Thomas, Kent Smith, Paul Chinnici, Fred Barber and Greg Jennings, officially started fossil recovery operations in 1992. That group recovered over 120 different species from the quarry and has given the scientific community a superb book about the Rochester Shale at the Middleport Quarry.
The Caleb Quarry offered a unique glimpse into the past. For more than 400 million years, fossils from that exotic world have been trapped in solid rock. As each is released from its stone grave, it reminds us of a time when New York State was located south of the equator and covered by a warm shallow ocean. The variety and abundance of fossils found in the quarry is testimony to the vibrant life in that long ago, clear tropical sea.
The Caleb Quarry had become a world famous source of Silurian Age invertebrate fossils from the Rochester Shale. Long before the fossil recovery project started the fossil beds of the Lewiston Member of the Rochester Shale were made famous by the work done by James Hall from the 1850's to 1860's, Eugene Ringueberg from 1884 to 1888, Frank Springer from 1914 to 1922, and Carlton E. Brett and his students, especially Denis Tetreault, James Eckert, and Wendy Taylor in the 1970's to 1990's. As a result of their work and others, the ancient environmental setting, depositional history and spectacular fauna specimens that have been collected, made the Rochester Shale of western New York and Ontario, Canada widely know.
This location has been important in the understanding of the Rochester Shale, and Silurian paleobiology, for some time. Carlton Brett first explored a nearby local creek, collecting bulk samples for his PhD dissertation in the late 1970's. James Eckert and Denis Tetreault discovered and excavated the echinoderm lagerstatten in 1981 and the Arctinurus beds in 1982 in that same creek during their research on the Rochester Shale. The Smithsonian Institution became involved in 1990 and completed excavation of what was accessible. Several specimens from that project are currently on public display in the Smithsonian's paleontology hall. Following that work, paleontological attention shifted away from the limited natural exposures along the creek, over to what would become the Caleb Quarry.
In 1989, a local industrial company needed a non-porous clay. This special clay was located nearby on a twenty acre parcel of land owned by Brent and Rose Caleb. The Calebs agreed to allow the clay to be excavated from their property. In return they would be left with two large ponds.
After excavating soil and clay to a depth of approximately nine feet, solid bedrock was encountered, forcing the excavation project to go wider rather than deeper. In time, over nine acres of the Rochester Shale formation was exposed. Soon after the clay removal project ended, the Calebs allowed excavation of fossils from the bedrock. A local group, Ray Meyer, Gene Thomas, Kent Smith, Paul Chinnici, Fred Barber and Greg Jennings, officially started fossil recovery operations in 1992. That group recovered over 120 different species from the quarry and has given the scientific community a superb book about the Rochester Shale at the Middleport Quarry.
The Caleb Quarry offered a unique glimpse into the past. For more than 400 million years, fossils from that exotic world have been trapped in solid rock. As each is released from its stone grave, it reminds us of a time when New York State was located south of the equator and covered by a warm shallow ocean. The variety and abundance of fossils found in the quarry is testimony to the vibrant life in that long ago, clear tropical sea.
The Caleb Quarry had become a world famous source of Silurian Age invertebrate fossils from the Rochester Shale. Long before the fossil recovery project started the fossil beds of the Lewiston Member of the Rochester Shale were made famous by the work done by James Hall from the 1850's to 1860's, Eugene Ringueberg from 1884 to 1888, Frank Springer from 1914 to 1922, and Carlton E. Brett and his students, especially Denis Tetreault, James Eckert, and Wendy Taylor in the 1970's to 1990's. As a result of their work and others, the ancient environmental setting, depositional history and spectacular fauna specimens that have been collected, made the Rochester Shale of western New York and Ontario, Canada widely know.