Castle Hayne 4-2013

After two cancellations for this trip due to bad weather, the third attempt was finally a success. At the last minute, this trip was changed from a Friday to a Thursday (again due to weather) and thirteen members were able to make the trip. With all the heavy mining activities Castle Hayne is currently experiencing, we were fortunate to hunt the quarry. In fact we were ecstatic to even get into Castle Hayne with all the recent closures of quarries. The hunting area for this trip was somewhat reduced compared to previous trips and the group split up to hunt the various areas available. The “difficult” Eocene hills in the front still offered a variety of echinoids, brachiopods, etc while the area in the back had some well weathered Peedee for the Cretaceous hunters. Katie Graves Dodson found a rare Agassizia wilmingtonica (echinoid) and a small Carcharocles ariculatus sharks tooth. Joanne Panek-Debrock with unwavering persistence found three nice Hardouinia mortonis (echinoid) and a Serratolamna koerti tooth. Eric Sadorf found the scarce Coelopleurus carolinensis (echinoid) and Trish Kohler a large crab claw. Mark McCoy, Don Clements and myself spent much of the time in the Cretaceous Peedee. Mark and Don found many Peedee mud nodules with the Avitelmessus grapsoideus crab hidden inside. I found my first Castle Hayne Hardouinia aequoria (echinoid) while Ralph Brinton found a beautiful shark vertebra. Diane & Ed Edwards, Todd Power, Joy Herrington and Linda McCall also enjoyed the trip and found a nice assortment of echinoids and small teeth. Our sincere thanks go out to Doug Pope with Martin Marietta for the opportunity to allow our club to hunt in Castle Hayne. Once again this quarry offered up some great surprises!!