William's Cephalopod!

Here are some pics form a trip I took with my children looking for minerals and fossils in Jefferson County, Missouri one Saturday in the spring of 2012.  The day started of  quite pleasantly although a bit chilly.  At our first stop we were examining outcrops along a local highway that traverses a faulted section of the Decorah Formation.  This formation  is a great place for kids of all ages to find fossils.  As I was looking for potential calcite containing vugs in the Jefferson city dolomite which is also present at the location I was excitedly interrupted by my 6-year old son.  He was calling me (quite loudly at that) to com  see the fossil he found.  At first I was a bit skeptical that he had really fond anything major, but then again he and his sister have been my rockhounding buddies since they were both infants.
Upon turning around to head towards him I was immediately flabbergasted by what I saw.  even at a distanc eof over 100 feet from him I could see that he had indeed found an awesome fossil.  Somehow dad had overlooked this just a few minutes earlier .  My son was a very happy young man, he had found his very first Ordovician cephalopod fossil and it was a monster at that!  While not complete it was a section of a once very large cephalopod  as is seen in the  photos.  He was indeed one very happy youngster and I was one very proud father, way to go Will!

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William pointing out the cephalopod fossil he had found.