Fossil And Mineral Club Plans Show
When paleontologist Chris Haefner of West Hempfield found a fossil in a church yard in York, he suspected he had uncovered something special. "It was an unusual creature," said Haefner, who eventually learned the fossil represented an animal previously unknown to mankind. "It was not just a new species. It was a new genus - a new family," said Haefner.
The creature is now officially called "Yorkicystis haefneri" - after York, where it was found, and Haefner, who found it. Haefner will have an exhibit about the fossil and speak about his find at the Lancaster County Fossil and Mineral Club's Christmas in July Extravaganza to be held at the Farm and Home Center, 1383 Arcadia Road, Lancaster, on Saturday, July 23, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday, July 24, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. A nominal fee will be charged to enter.
Haefner has been involved with rocks and minerals since the age of 12, when his uncle employed him as a rock cracker in making rock and mineral boxes to be sold at museums, including the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.
Haefner founded the county-wide club with his wife, Cathy, who now serves as treasurer, in 2013. At the May 2014 meeting, the group learned that the Cityview Church in West York had moved rock to a specific area of land when a new building was constructed. "The rock (in that area) is Kinzers shale," explained Haefner. "It looked fossiliferous," he noted, adding that the rock features rare echinoderms - marine invertebrates. Haefner gained permission to complete pocket-hole digs of about 18 inches deep, and he with help from Cathy, set about searching for fossils. He found the first to two Yorkicystis fossils in May 2017, and posted a photo on his Facebook page. A "friend" saw the post and alerted Dr. Samuel Zamora, a paleontologist specializing in echinoderms who has worked at the Smithsonian. Haefner surrendered the fossil, and later a second specimen, to be studied by Zamora, along with two researchers from London and one from Baylor University in Waco, Texas. The fossil now resides at the Natural History Museum in London.
"The only way to get something noted and named is to give it to science," said Haefner, who said he wishes that York had a museum that could be home to the fossils. "In York there have been profound discoveries," noted Haefner, citing the genus of Trilobite discovered in that area in 1901.
More information may be found by searching for "Lancaster County Fossil and Mineral Club" on Facebook.
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