Wow, those are incredible pictures john, hopefully sometime in the future I can make a dig like that.

Who let you in here!? How did you sneak in under my astute observation? 
First of all, does anybody else refer to these quarries as "sister quarries" or just you?  And do you mean they belong to the same continuous formation or the same type of formation?
Also John, go to "artifacts" and look at the disc thingy I found when you get a chance.
Seriously, about time you chimed in...because I don't have time to read "Annals of the Former World". 

Great pictures and finds John.  I still want to go looking for that pyrite with you sometime.   

Thanks also for your compliment.  I will be doing a write up about my set up, providing pictures and instructions on how anyone can do it.  Currently I do not use any photo editing software to altar my pictures unless I want to remove lint or dust that may have settled on or around the specimen.  I did used to try that when I first started this website, but was never satisfied with the result -- keep in mind I mean that I was never satisfied with "my" results as I have seen photoshop produce wonderful backgrounds that I wish I could have obtained.  So I went with altering the actual physical background to produce the results I get now.

Scott,

I did not know that you were not using Photoshop, your photos are now even more impressive. I have experimented with various backgrounds and have found that a piece of black poster board at the base and a piece of black felt for the background along with a small aperture setting on the camera can be quite pleasing, this is the method employed on the last couple of fluorite pictures I posted and the results were quite nice. I like the way the background appears to change hue.


Rebecca,

The Walworth and the Penfield quarries are referred to as sister quarries as they are mining the same geological formation. The formation is called the Lockport formation, which stretches from Niagara Falls to approximately 200 miles eastward to Ilion, New York. The Lockport Formation has a maximum thickness of about 175 feet. It is the cap rock of Niagara Falls. The Lockport Formation is of Middle Silurian age (about 420 million years old) and is primarily composed of a hard dolomitic limestone with lower layers of shale. The two quarries are less than ten miles apart as the crow flies.

Joe,

Hope to catch up with you soon need a good indurated mudstone argilite conversation coupled with the finer points of siderita ankerite ferroan dolomite yadda yadda yadda

Take care folks,

John