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  1. Tidgy's Dad

    Adam's Early / Lower Devonian

    The Devonian period is known as "The Age of Fish", but could also be known as "The Age of Brachiopods." In the Early / Lower Devonian, brachiopods reached the height of their diversity towards its end in the Emsian. We see the ancestral groups occurring, lingulids, craniids, orthids, protorthids, pentamerids, rhynchonellids and strophomenids, as well as the later successful groups we have seen before such as atrypids, athyrids and orthotetids, plus the rise of spiriferids, spiriferinids and productids and the beginning of the terebratulids. By the end of the Devonian , several of these groups are extinct or severely reduced in importance and brachiopods never quite recover. Also, the Devonian is the last time we see trilobites with such variation, large sizes and numbers and orthocerids too are much more uncommon after the rise of the goniatites. The massive tabulate coral reefs also disappear after the Devonian. Fascinating period and I hope to share some of its wonders with you. Equally, a lot of this is rather new to me, so I would be very grateful for any assistance, corrections or further information on my specimens. Thank you. The Early Devonian epoch is split into three stages, so let's start with the first of those, the Lochkovian, that began about 419 mya and finished roughly 411 mya. I have been sent a nice selection of brachiopods from the Kalkberg Formation, Helderberg Group by the Mighty @Misha, mostly. But the kind gentleperson also sent me this fascinating little bryozoan hash : It is dominated by fenestellids, which is usually the case in the Devonian, but other orders sill occur. These ones, I think, are Fenestella, but there are so many species in the formation that I wont take a guess as to species : Not sure what this one is ;
  2. What is the difference between crinoid and blastoid columnals. I know the difference between the calyx of a crinoid and the theca of a blastoid. I have a site I visit that has a mash up of both calyxes and thecas, but not with attached columnals. It is a Mississippian site, Warsaw formation.
  3. Thomas1982

    Devonoblastus leda

    From the album: Mahantango Formation

    Devonoblastus leda Perry County, Pennsylvania
  4. Collector9658

    Pentremites pyriformis

    From the album: Mississippian fossils

    A nice Pentremites blastoid from the Golconda Formation of IL.
  5. Collector9658

    Golconda Formation fossil hunt

    A few days ago I took a trip to view some exposures of Ordovician aged rock along the Mississippi River. I had decided afterwards to take a little detour and stop by a fairly popular exposure of Mississippian aged Golconda Formation outside the town of Anna, Illinois. There is rock exposure along both sides of the road here. I was careful, and decided to park further down along a gravel road. A lot of material at this site is weathered out, and easily collectable. I flipped about every rock I saw as I walked up to the exposure, and the first rock I flipped had a nice blastoid on it that looks to clean up nice. I didn't use any tools here, everything collected was just picked up loose. I found a few more nice Pentremites blastoids. This next one is probably the largest Pentremites I've found in Illinois. It was huge! Here are the two compared next to each other. I believe they are both Pentremites pyriformis. I found a few nice crinoids as well. I almost couldn't believe what I saw when I spotted this first crinoid! A very small and dirty Phanocrinus crinoid. The next one I found was on a rock I flipped over, and better shows the bottom calyx plates. This one unfortunately wasn't complete, still not too shabby. There were alot of bryzoans and brachiopods weathered out. I did take a small handful of Archimedes spirals. Last find was a small block with a trilobite pygidium on it. This was a nice little stop. It was very easy to collect as well.
  6. SilurianSalamander

    Blastoid?

    Are these both blastoids? The larger one is about 2 cm across at its widest point and the smaller is about half a cm across. Ordovician, Dane county Madison Wisconsin. Thanks!
  7. I’ve been told these blastoids appear to be Mississippian in age. That surprises me because the rocks in Dane county Wisconsin are late Cambrian - early Ordovician and the nearest Carboniferous rocks are a long ways away. I’ve done some research into the history of the buildings on the UW Madison campus where I find these fossils and they were supposedly quarried only a few miles from where they now lie. I was also told that blastoids didn’t appear until the Carboniferous. From a quick google search I got the impression that, while they massively diversified in the Carboniferous, they first appeared during the Ordovician. I’m just confused and curious as to how old these rocks are. They’re packed full of fossils and I often find tiny fossils that have eroded out of them and fallen to the ground to collect. attatched are the 2 or 3 blastoids and some of the other fossils I’ve found in these rocks. Any help as to what the age could be would be wonderful! also any IDs on some of the other fossils more specific than “gastropod” or “cephalopod” or “crinoid” are also appreciated. Thank you so much! Y’all are great.
  8. Curious and a bit crazy, I drove a couple hours out to what used to be a popular blastoid collecting site in Illinois. I've read online that this location has been the example of a couple bad apples ruining the bunch in the past, so I wasn't sure if I could collect or not. The exposure lies in a creek between private property, so to cover my bases I went knocking on some doors. Sometimes, that's all it takes. I spoke with the landowner, and he was nice and did not mind me looking and collecting. I would kindly express that anyone else with similar intentions do the same. Excited, I raced down to the exposure. A short walk from my car and I found the creek. The post will be picture heavy. A bit overgrown, but that's normal during the summertime in the Midwestern USA. I waded to the other side of the creek and started checking the mud towards the bottom. It didn't take long until I found a Pentremites blastoid! It was a decent size, though a bit compressed. Checking back, I noticed another one right below it, and gave them a quick creek wash. I then went up and started checking the first lower wall and noticed a nice dirty blastoid eroding out of what looks like a mudstone/ shale rock. I decided getting low on my hands and knees and checking through all the eroded material would be the best approach. This worked well. There were many blastoids just waiting to be plucked at the surface, or waiting just below some debree. So far, they were all in nice condition. The soft matrix attached also comes off easily in most cases. After finding 4, I got overwhelmed a bit from excitement and had to sit for a few minutes. A short break later, I started looking again and found more. A lot more. There were so many Pentremite blastoids just littered around. It was almost like picking up pecans when they start to fall, but better! Venturing towards the top of the exposure, I noticed some larger examples. Some were exposed in the soft wall, while a few looked like they had fell out recently. Here was a very nice specimen I found towards the top buried in mud. After a quick wash Almost everything I had found was just laying there and weathered out. No tools were required. I flipped through and looked at some of the bigger chunks of rock, but most were barren besides one cool little multi block. There were also some nice brachiopods and bryozoa I collected, which I sadly didn't photograph. I did find some sort of crusher toothplate as well. I think the blastoids always get most of the attention here, and I can understand why. I've never collected a spot with them so abundant. My final find ended up being my favorite, and biggest blastoid. I'm amazed at the quality, sizes, and sheer abundance of Pentremites blastoids that are here. This was a lot of fun and is a productive place to spend a day.
  9. connorp

    A lucky Devonian find

    This past weekend I was able to hunt in the Middle Devonian Silica Shale in Ohio for a couple of hours. I found a lot of great things, but I think this took the cake for me. It was my first good find of the day, and the only specimen I've found in 5+ trips to this site. I don't have my Silica Shale book with me right now, but I believe it to be Hyperoblastus reimanni. In situ Cleaned up
  10. ydok

    ID Help

    All found in Wabash County, Indiana. Any assistance is appreciated. 1. Is this a trilobite? If so, can a specific species be identified? 2. Is this a blastoid within all these crinoid pieces? 3. Is this a fossil or just geological? 4. I know these are crinoids, but is there any way to tell what that dark piece is at the end? Trilobite?
  11. (Edit: properly formatted below.)
  12. Tales From the Shale

    Glen Dean Formation 2022

    Found a real nice exposure of the Glen Dean Formation in central Kentucky recently. Oh man did it not dissapoint. So here is some of the best crinoid material I have ever found. A calyx with partial arms, pictured with some stems and ossicles. A single ossicle, with crinoid spins, that are still sharp. Both of which are as common as gravel here. A small peculiarcalyx and crinoid cup. This massive gorgeous Pentremites sp. I found this one on my first trip, so unfortunately no scale but I will upload more of it later. More large blastoids this time around as well. It may not be as diverse, but I have only seen this quality of blastoids in the Thunder Bay of Michigan. An uncrushed Composita sp. A nice spirifid of some variety. I want to say Neospirifir but that is likely incorrect as it does not fit the range. The partial pygidium of a Kaskia chesterensis? Mm mm mm! These delicously preserved Zaphrentis spinulosum. I have some monsters of these, but again they're from a previous trip so I will post them later. I did find some gastropods and tons upon tons of crinoid stems and bryozoans as well, here is one image of them with various other pieces. The Glen Dean of Illinois occurs nearly on the same Latitude as this locality does. However it does not compare with the sheer quality and quantity to be found here in Kentucky.
  13. Tales From the Shale

    Michigan Blastoids

    Some of the blastoids I picked up while in Michigan awhile back. I'm not sure of their identities, however I imagine it wouldn't be hard with some effort.
  14. val horn

    Is it a Blastoid with arms?

    I went to the Shenandoah valley Va to look for blastoids in the devonian road cuts. Found horn coral, standard brachiopods mostly on the sandier insides of the concretions, and what I hope are blastoids with arms on the hard rock edges of a couple of concretions I am very interested in what others think that I have found. The concretions chunks are from 3 to 10 inches, the fine "arm "segments are in the mm range. the first photo is I believe horn coral body and impression. the second shows 3 concretion chunks fitting together with "arms" and the balance of the photos show other surfaces of these chunks showing more "arms" and the ?"internal" surface of the theca. This was not what I expected when I went hunting, and I am very unsure of what I found Confirmation, or correction will be appreciated.
  15. Hello, This specimen was labeled as "Sundablastus?", a Permian blastoid from Timor, Indonesia. It's about 2 cm long. I tried looking it up and could find no images nor Wanner's original description of the genus in 1924. All I could find was this attached article Fay 1961 "Blastoid Studies" with just the following bit of text describing Sundablastus, which does seem consistent with my specimen: "A trend in this group is reduction in length of the spiracular slits to form small round slits on the summit and shape of the calyx becoming spherical (Sundablastus)" Can anyone confirm the ID or provide images that I can reference? Thanks. paleo.article.027op.pdf
  16. TheGreenMan

    Some Kentucky finds.

    I went to a locale in Kentucky I'd heard about and did some hunting for blastoids, which I had never looked for before. After about an hour I came away with a bunch of crinoid pieces, some brachiopods, some random bryozoan pieces, a few horn corals, what may be a gastropod, and a bunch of blastoids of at least two different species. On to the pictures. I also included some random odds-n-ends at the bottom. A pile of fossils. Some of the more interesting crinoids. The three on top have some pyrite encrustation. The four on the bottom are interesting because they broke pre-fossilization but are still associated, have bryozoan encrustation, or have hold-fast nubs on them. Close up of pyrite encrusted pieces. Horn corals. Brachiopods. Possible gastropod. Blastoids. Largest is just over 1cm. More blastoids. Largest is just over 2cm. And finally some odds-n-ends found while drilling along the Tennessee River. Everything is from about 80'-100' bgs. Two pieces of oolitic limestone. Weird ball of something. No clue what it is. Really should acid test it at least. (Shown next to one of the pieces of oolitic limestone.) A carapace. I'm not sure if this is old material or if it is recent remains of something living in the subsurface gravel layers. And lastly a chunk of fluoride from NW Ohio.
  17. I'm a collector from michigan and have a large amount of specimens to prep. I am starting this topic to help others and myself on the ID'S of criniods and blastoids I commonly find in michigan. I'll start this with a worn, but otherwise nice criniod my sister found last summer up in partridge point. I believe it is one of 3 species of Megistocrinus. Im waiting for my sister to send me the specimen so I can get a better look at it and add photos to this post. I'm leaning towards an M. regularis due to its shorter height than the other two examples. Just under 6cm in length and width and a little over 3cm in height. Please share your thoughts on which one you might think it is. Any additional papers or resources on echinoderms is appreciated! Classification Common: criniod Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Echinodermata Class: Criniodia Order: Camerata Family: Reteocrinidae? Genus: Megistocrinus LOCATION Country: U.S.A. State: Michigan County: Alpena township City: Alpena Latitude: 45.0056405 Longitude: -83.4332667 Geochronology Eon: Phanerezoic Era: Paleozoic Period: Devonian Epoch: Middle Devonian Lithostratigraphy Group: Traverse group Formation: Partridge point Member: Thunderbay limestone Dimensions Length (cm) 6 Width (cm) 6 Height (cm) 3.7 Notes Identifier Kyle Eichhorn Collector Kyle Eichhorn Event Date 02/01/2021 Field Notes: exposed by tides at partridge point park.
  18. On my way home from Georgia today I decided to make a short stop at the Vienna, Illinois roadcut that is right off of I-24. The weather was nice, a balmy 52 degrees and I was out collecting without a jacket. I decided to stop for 20 minutes and see how many blastoids that I could find, but alas, I only found a small one. I did find the usual pieces that are found at the Mississippian roadcut- blastoid, brachiopods, horn coral, a crinoid basal plates, bryozoan, including Archimedes screw and a number of hash plates. I really do like to collect Mississippian hash plates, I think that they are really pretty. Here are a few of the finds-
  19. As a late Father's Day gift and early Birthday present (I turn 39 tomorrow ) I spent 4 hours Saturday morning in the Glen Dean Limestone. A Carboniferous (Mississippian) formation. As usual, I was channeling my inner mountain goat and scrambling around a Central Kentucky roadcut. As I pulled up to the road cut my heart sank. Grass had grown on the exposure. If memory serves, the last time I was here was in the middle of September of last year and the exposure was bare. Most finds are small so I was worried that I wouldn't be able to find much. Luckily my fear and apprehension was unfounded. As a side note... I wasn't intending to use a screw driver for scale, but you will see the tip of one in multiple pictures. I was using it as a way to mark where the fossil was while digging my phone out of my pocket, but since it is there I will tell you that it is 5mm wide to give a little perspective. With the finds being on the small side, and surface collecting the norm, these were my weapons of choice. A collecting bag of some sort is preferred here over my usual plastic container. It's been my experience that the bag conforms to the slope better and tends to roll up on itself should it start to tumble down the hill side preventing its contents from spilling out. Below is a typical section of ground here. It is littered with bryozoan and crinoid stem fragments. I knew the day was going to be good when my first find was this very long example of Archimedes sp. I'd estimate it to be about 7 inches (nearly 18cm) long. In an exposure that is notorious for broken and flattened fossils, this was a real treat. Unfortunately it was in a rock that was too thick and wide to chisel it out of. I'm fairly certain my chisel and hammer would have worn out long before the rock did. Horn coral are always nice to find. Especially these, which are some of my favorite. Zaphretites spinulosum. Another favorite find from this exposure is crinoid cups. There are multiple species of crinoid here. Crinoid calyx cups are on the uncommon to rare side of finds, but I made out like a champ with crinoids on this trip. Stick around to see some of my rarer finds of the day. Echinoderms are probably my favorite type of fossil to find, and so crinoid cups are great, but my absolute favorite thing to find here is blastoids. Pentremites is the genus to be found. There are several species known from the Glen Dean. That is it for the field pictures. Next up are a few pictures of finds taken after I got home. Horn coral (Zaphretites spinulosum) Calyx cups from various species of crinoid. Blastoids! All are species of Pentremites. The ones on the left are massive for the formation, and rare. Although they are preserved in the typical fashion, crushed and deflated. The middle are more common and are typical size and preservation. The ones on the right are typical size, but are inflated. Pardon the fingers, but it was the best way I could find to get a clear picture of this particular blastoid. I wanted to show the preservation detail. Lovely. Extra long crinoid stems that I grabbed. An line up of brachiopods found here. The last three on the right are typical of the preservation. Just like anything else here they are deflated and crushed. The middle two are new to me species and were found at the transition layer from shale to limestone. The three on the left are preserved in a rare fashion being that they are inflated. Close ups to follow. Again, pardon the man hands. And finally these next few pictures are of the rarest of my finds from this formation to date. These are small gastropods. I still need to research an ID, but @Jeffrey P told me about these when we hunted the location last year and mentioned them as being very rare for the exposure. We only found a couple of broken fragments between the two of us after hunting for 6 hours or so. I found 5 complete ones this time around. Next up is a crinoid cup that has plates attached. I also found a grouping of crinoid arms. These do not go together and were found far apart. Not quite a complete calyx, but maybe next time. That concludes my report. It was a good turn around to a slow fossil year for me. I added many new and rare (for this exposure) things to the collection. I couldn't have asked for a better Father's Day/early Birthday present! Thanks for looking. Edit: I almost forgot the rarest of the rare! I have never read about trilobites being described from this formation and have never seen any other than this tiny pygidium. A small (4mm), but extremely rare (and possibly undescribed) find.
  20. I think the first post I made here was about Partridge Point. I'm still not a fossil expert, but I thought this video I made might be useful for someone thinking about visiting this spot. It gives a good idea of the types of fossils that you can find. Maybe someone can help me identify a couple things I wasn't sure about.
  21. Work and weather have kept me from doing much fossil collecting these last couple of months. But I was finally able to photograph finds from my last outing. I found some interesting stuff I think. We'll start with my favorite find.. This is the large blastoid Xyeleblastus magnificus. They're always found crushed to some extent (even the holotype.) This is only the second blastoid I've found in the Fort Payne! Did well with the crinoids that day A very nice Agaricocrinus sp. with the stem attachment point exposed (they usually have that area filled with matrix.) Also shows an unusual texture that I havent seen on other specimen in my collection. Another Agaricocrinus sp. calyx slightly damaged and with calcite coming out from between the plates. Agaricocrinus is one of the three most common genus from that formation. Another being..... Alloprosallocrinus conicus. I never find one with the anal tube intact, most likely from them being transported and deposited. Heres a slightly rarer one... Gaulocrinus veryi I normally don't collect stem sections anymore, but I did decide to grab this large section.... Its a Platycrinites sp. stem. They are distinctively twisted. This is my second favorite find of that trip.. Its and Auloporid coral (most likely Cladochonus sp.) wrapped around a crinoid stem section! More later...
  22. Jackson g

    Halloween hunt

    Goodmorning/ afternoon all! Being a middle aged 20 year old, I've outgrown the need to go trick or treating for candy on Halloween. This year, my brother and I were supposed to have my nephew over for the weekend. We had originally planned some fun activities for the little guy (he's 4) as real trick or treating was out of the question this year. Turns out this week that 4 of his day care workers came down with the Covid, so he's now in quarantine at his mom's house for 3 (her choice, she won't budge) weeks. All alone for Saturday now, I decided to go out and look for the real treats, fossils! I started by going to my first and favorite honey hole, knowing the site wouldn't be the best to collect currently. Fluctuations in water levels determine how ideal this location is, and the waters been very low this year. While this being a good thing, it's also been so low for some time that overgrowth has had more time to come in. This just makes it more of a pain to scope around, but for me that just means going down to the hands and knees. There were some spots where it wasn't as bad, but all of the ideal scrap spots required patience and sifting through. Not sure why, but I only took one picture in situ this time. Glad I did, because it was a nicer, plump blastoid! It only required a bit of digging around the rock, and prep should be easy peasy on this guy. For the first fossil hunt in a while for me, I would say that yesterday was a successful day out. I only take nicer, complete specimens now a days. I hauled home a nice Globoblastus norwoodi blastoid, an Uperocrinus pyriformis crinoid, a Platycrinites? calyx, and a nice little brachiopod I still need to ID. Heres everything cleaned/ prepped besides the Uperocrinus. I may just leave it as is, but something in me tells me I'll do detail work someday on it. I trimmed down the matrix and half prepped the blastoid. I think this one will stay like it is in matrix. I remove most of the calyxs from the rock, but figured it would be cool to keep a couple of fossils in their rock setting. The hour I spent out fossil hunting was much needed. This past month has only entailed packing up possessions, moving on, and working. Getting out was nice and much needed. Now I have some more fossils to pack up. Hope everyone had a fun, and safe Halloween. Regards, Jackson
  23. DPS Ammonite

    Orophocrinus saltensis

    This silicified blastoid at 31 mm in width is close to maximum size for the species. Found with at least three species of crinoids in Mississippian Escabrosa Limestone which is roughly equivalent to the Redwall Limestone of central and northern Arizona. Macurda D. B., Jr. 1965. The functional morphology and stratigraphic distribution of the Mississippian blastoid genus Orophocrinus. Journal of Paleontology 39(6):1045-1096. McKee, Edwin D., Gutschick, R. C., 1969. History of the Redwall Limestone of northern Arizona. Geological Society of America Memoirs 114, 1-700. Mindat: Link Fossil Forum: Link
  24. Fellow WIPS member Shellie Luallin, who is expert in 3D imaging of fossils https://sketchfab.com/Paleogirl recently imaged a presumed Pennsylvanian blastoid of mine from Cherokee County, OK and generously made it available as a free download: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/pentremites-rusticus-e729f54539014770b0128b000fca841b Note the very pronounced interambulacral areas (deltoids) where the hydrospires are developed. Katz (1978) https://www.jstor.org/stable/1303971?seq=1 lumped exisiting variants into one species P. rusticus based on hydrospire similarity Given that this distinctive morphologic end member is stratigraphically restricted and present a population, perhaps this conclusion should be revisited.
  25. FossilNerd

    The Day of The Echinoderm

    Firstly, a big THANK YOU to @Jeffrey P for hanging out with me for the day! What a knowledgeable, generous, and all around swell guy! If you ever get the opportunity to hunt with Jeff, I highly encourage you to. Jeff and I met at around 8:30 am, and after a quick transfer of his gear to my truck, we were off. We first drove about 45 minutes south to the small town of Wax, to hunt the Upper Mississippian. Specifically to look for blastoids and crinoid calyxes that were known to be found in the area. As it happens, luck was with us! Unfortunately, I didn't take the field pictures that I typically do. Due to the fact that I went swimming with my phone a month or so ago . I am down to using my wife's old phone that I found in the junk drawer (Yes Jeff, it's pink... ). I didn't take it out much to avoid the inevitable drop down the hill side. Especially since it doesn't even have a protective case... Jeff snapped a few pictures. Maybe he will chime in and add them when he is able. For the first few minutes we didn't find much besides crinoid stems, bryozoans, and the deflated or crushed brachiopods common to the site. The main species of brach found in the area doesn't seem to have fared well during the fossilization process. Finding a nice inflated one is a rarity. After a few minutes of adjusting our eyes to spot the small finds located here, we started to pick out the blastoids. Jeff was the first to find one, and gifted it to me as he had already collected a few on his previous trips here. Thanks Jeff for gifting me my first blastoid! Most of the blastoids, while small, were whole and nicely preserved. Here are a few examples. I did happen to find the largest blastoid from the site, and one of the larger ones Jeff had seen from here. Super pumped about this one! Crinoid calyx were also to be found here. We only found a few, but being that these were also a first for me, I was extremely excited to find them! The brachiopods I previously mentioned were abundant, and besides crinoid stems, were the most abundant fossil to be found here. Again, they are almost always deflated. Finding a nice inflated one would be a real treat. These other little Spirifer(?) brachiopods could also be found. Although they were more uncommon that the previous ones. They are very small and delicate. Often crumbling when trying to pick them up. Bivalves could be found here also, but were extremely rare. Jeff was excited to find a couple, but I struck out. Other things that could be found were crinoid stems, the odd solitary rugose coral, and of course the ever present bryozoans. We then headed to a site a few miles down the road in Leitchfield. Stay tuned!
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