Jason and I are all about experiencing life and sharing experiences with others. This ideology led to us giving our family members their choice of one of four activities in lieu of birthday presents in 2023. One of these options was a trip into Utah’s unconventional and under populated West Desert for some world-famous rock excavating. Eight of our family members chose this as their birthday activity and three others tagged along. The primary objective was trilobite fossils, but we found many other solid masses of significance. Here’s the scoop on our scooping.
We started this stone excursion with a stop in Eureka and nearby Silver City. Eureka was once Utah’s 9th-largest city. It’s story of boom and bust is typical of any mining mecca, except the boom lasted for over a century. Once home to nearly 4,000 people, Eureka is now an interesting and colorful settlement of 650 hardy residents and many relics of the past. If you are passing through, I’d recommend checking out the historic brick buildings, Porter Rockwell’s cabin, and the Star Theater’s projection equipment from 1935. (The theater itself closed in 1958.) We also stopped at Crazy Mary’s Rock Shop in the Gatley Building, which was constructed in 1898. Mary kindly gave us a tour of the old structure including its 20-foot indoor well used for cooling purposes during the prohibition days.
From Eureka, we traveled to neighboring Silver City, a true ghost town. At one time, Silver City was home to a population of 1,500. From 1869 to 1915, it went from being a mining town to an ore sampling mill and smelter. After 1915, the mill closed, and by 1930 Silver City was mostly deserted. Massive concrete foundations with compartments, tunnels, arches, and towers are the principal remains at the location. We explored these and then headed up the road to the mouth of Dragon Canyon where the Dragon Mine still operates. Outside the gates of Dragon Canyon, we found a promising patch of dirt and started digging. There, we believe we found samples of hematite but plan on further analysis to confirm.
Long before the brief influx of miners, the West Desert was home to lasting residents, trilobites. Trilobites, one of Earth’s most successful lifeforms, evolved over 300 million years into more than 25,000 species. These sea-dwelling creatures flourished about 1,000 times longer than the entire span of current human existence.
Roughly an hour past Delta, an outcropping of Wheeler Shale containing some of the highest concentrations of trilobite fossils in North America was forced to the surface from thousands of feet below by warping and weathering. This remarkable layer is open to curious enthusiasts for personal excavation and fossil removal at U-Dig Fossils: Quarry. That was our destination the next day.
While trilobites survived for hundreds of millions of years, the trilobites at U-Dig are from just the Cambrian Period, 500-550 million years ago. A lot of fossils can develop over 50 million years though. They are prolific at the site, and no one walked away empty-handed.
We chipped and pried through rock in one of the quarry’s prehistoric pits from noon to a little after 5:30, almost closing time. At least, some of us did. You see, there was no rain in the forecast that day, but that didn’t stop it from raining. The showers started about 3:00 and continued the rest of the afternoon. The less resilient members of our group left early because they didn’t appreciate the soaking. Jason and I, along with a few others, kept at it and found some great specimens while chilled and water-logged.
The following day, we headed to Obsidian Hill in search of Apache Tears, which are rounded obsidian pebbles. We found them and a whole lot of jasper. Unfortunately, the gnats found us. I obtained at least thirty gnat bites that afternoon. Jason didn’t get nearly as many, but he got one inside his ear and couldn’t sleep that night because he was in so much pain. The origins of these gnats were a mystery as there didn’t seem to be any water or anything else of gnatty interest nearby.
Utah’s West Desert is a fantastic place to travel back in time 150 years or 550 million years. The oddities are plentiful in that parched expanse. If you have a curiosity about rocks or just an inquisitive mind, it might be time to take your own family on a West Desert, dirt-sleuthing experience.