Beecher's Trilobite Beds

Beecher's Trilobite Beds is a Konservat-Lagerstätten of Late Ordovician (Caradoc) age located within the Frankfort Shale in Cleveland's Glen, Rome, Oneida Co., New York, USA. Only 3-4 centimeters thick, Beecher's Trilobite Beds have yielded numerous exceptionally preserved trilobites with the ventral anatomy and soft tissue intact, the soft tissue preserved by pyrite replacement. Pyritisation allows the use of X-rays to study fine detail of preserved soft body parts still within the host rock. Pyrite replacement of soft tissue is unusual in the fossil record; the only Lagerstätten thought to show such preservation were Beechers Trilobite Beds, the Devonian Hunsrück Slates of Germany, and the Jurassic beds of La Voultesur- Rhône in France, although new locations are coming to light.

Originally discovered in 1892 by William S. Valiant, the site was first excavated from 1893-1895 by Charles Emerson Beecher of Yale University, after whom the location is named. Beecher published two papers describing a trilobite larval form and trilobite limbs from material collected from within the Bed, but he died unexpectedly in 1904. Upon Beecher's death, much material and details of the location were lost. Amateur fossil collectors Tom Whiteley and Dan Cooper rediscovered the location in 1984 and from 1989 major academic excavations and studies (re)-commenced. The small quarry at the site is currently closed to public access, being administered by Yale Peabody Museum as part of ongoing research projects.