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Kansas Academy of Science Field Trip to Hamilton Quarry Oct. 2000Hamilton Quarry - A Permo-Carboniferous Fossil Site in Greenwood County, Kansas

Photo at right: The Kansas Academy of Sciences Fall Field Trip, October, 2000, at the Hamilton Quarry.  

A Web Page by Roy J. Beckemeyer
Last updated: 14 August 2001

 

Cockroach wing fossil from Hamilton Quarry

Photo at left: A cockroach wing fossil collected by Roy J. Beckemeyer at Hamilton Quarry at the KAS Fall Field Trip.  A number of similar fossils were found by other participants in the trip in a short period of searching.  


The photo below left shows the quarry pond near which the cockroach fossils were found.  KAS Field Trip to Hamilton Quarry, Oct. 2000

KAS members in the photo are: from left, Cal Cink, Baker University, Mike Morales, Emporia State University and Johnston Geology Museum, and Liz Brosius, Kansas Geological Survey.

 

 

 

 


Hamilton Quarry PROTODONATA Fossil - Terminal abdominal segments of a female meganeurid:

An indispensible reference to Hamilton Quarry is the Kansas Geological Survey Guidebook Series 6: Regional geology and paleontology of upper Paleozoic Hamilton quarry area in southeastern Kansas.  G. Mapes & R. Mapes, compilers and editors.  Lawrence, Kansas, 1988.  Of particular interest is the coverage of the Hamilton insect fauna by C. J. Durden of Texas Memorial University (pp. 117-124).   Other orders represented at Hamilton include Protodonata, Atocida, and Palaeodictyoptera.

In August 2001 I visited the Texas Memorial Museum in Austin and was able to scan and photograph a number of fossil insects, including the Hamilton Protodonata specimen.  Thanks very much to Chris Durden, the curator of invertebrates at the TMM, for his hospitality and for permission to make and use these images.  Below is a picture of the fossil together with a scanned image of a portion of Brongniart's (1893) figure and reconstruction of Titanophasma fayoli (the body of Meganeura monyi ?).  The similarity in shape and size is very striking.  The fossil is obviously from a meganeurid protodonate - possibly Meganeura monyi or a closely related species.  It comprises the terminal four abdominal segments, in lateral view, and includes the ovipositer valves, which project posteriorly from the ventral area of the terminal segment.  The dark circular spot in the terminal segment was thought by Durden to be a coprolite (fecal material).

Hamilton Protofonata specimen: the last 4 abdominal segments, including ovipositor, of a female specimen similar to Brongniart's Titanophasma fayoli

Below is Chris Durden's interpretation of the Hamilton fossil, followed by Jurmila Kukalova-Peck's reconstruction of Titanophasma fayoli.

Sketch by C.J. Durden (1988) interpreting Hamilton Protodonata fossil

Kukalova-Peck's (1990) reconstruction of Brongniart's Titanophasma fayoli

Link to the Emporia State University Hamilton Quarry Web Site

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