Search the Community

Hi, recently i received a package from @Shamalama with fossils from Aurora, North Carolina. Some weren't labelled and i couldn't find out to who they belonged. 1) a vertebra 3 cm width 2 cm hight 2)That piece of a little less than 4 cm hight and 2 cm width 3) That piece of skull or only of jaw of about 2.5 cm hight and 1.8 cm width: 4)That brachiopod, maybe a Plicatoria wilmingtonensis according to Dave. 3.5 cm hight and about 2 cm width and thickness :

New location, still in Eastern Panhandle WV. One picture has the tip of a pencil so you can see size. The circled part...I am not sure. Are the shells brachiopods? I see some crinoid stem in there. Thank you for your insights.

My daughter found this nice little brach at a Racine, Wisconsin beach, with silurian bedrock. Milwaukee with devonian bedrock is not that far north. So the shell may very well be devonian. Can anyone help with identifying the species? Thanks in advance.

Hello everyone, I found this brachiopod a while ago at Charmouth, UK. It measures 1.5cm long and is from the Charmouth mudstone formation. Can anyone identify its species? Thanks in advance,

Here are a few small bits from the Cincinnatian (Upper Ordovician) roadcut near St Leon, IN, that I’m not sure of the IDs. They were all collected from the butter shale trilobite layer of the Liberty Formation. First is what I think may be part of a crinoid? Not positive. Next, I have no idea. Maybe part of a crinoid. A fragment of a conulariid also crossed my mind. Here is a small brachiopod that I picked up thinking it was Zygospira but is definitely not. I’m guessing this trilobit is Flexicalymene, but I know a few other species of trilobites are found here so I wanted to check.

I found this conglomerate, or hashplate of Brachiopods on the Whitewater River, Southeast Indiana and wonder what they are. It seems like a cross cut of the ancient Ordovician sea bed because all the fossils are on top of rock that seems layered. I've been slowly working on my first prep, from left to right using sewing machine needles, I don't want to mess it up!

Hi everyone! A few months ago I recieved this little brachiopod with crystalization on the inside, it was a nice piece which came very cheap. Unfortunatly there was no information on this piece, no ID, no location and no age. All I know is that it came from an old collection and that the previous owner had lot's of fossils from Scandinavia & Germany. The matrix in very soft limestone, comparable to the Maastrichtian limestone from my region, I know similar limestone formations can be found in the UK, France, Denmark & Germany, to name a few. So I was wondering whether anyone can give more information on this piece, I know it's hard to ID something when no information is available, but maybe someone has a piece similar to this or knows the species when he sees it? Thanks in advance!

This is my second manual prep. Three partial brachiopod valves. Again, nothing special. I picked them up specifically to practice on. The middle valve is very fragile. Part of the valve broke off while prepping and the whole thing is ready to come off the base matrix. It wiggles like a loose tooth! No surprise, as the whole piece has cracks running through it; typical of the stratum. I also was beginning to uncover a bryozoan above the left most valve. I chose to stop as this was just for practice anyway. It will make a good addition to my son’s little collection. I realized after I was well into the prep that I had neglected to take progress pictures. Oh well... Mistakes made, and lessons learned, but I had fun along the way! Practice makes perfect! Things I learned... You need supporting matrix. I broke a couple of pieces from the edge of the valves because they were undercut and very little matrix was there to support it as I applied pressure to the top. “Sticky” matrix is the bane of my existence! Lol. Seriously. That stuff is a pain in the neck! Matrix composition can vary even in the same rock. Some pieces flake off. Some spots are hard. Some are soft. Others drive you crazy! Patience! I already knew this, but it bears repeating. Remember to take pictures. Here are a couple of before shots and one completed picture. The only pictures I remembered to take... Before: After:

Hey all, last week I was visiting my grandma in Arizona, and of course I had to stop at a local fossil spot! I’m just now cleaning up everything we collected (I’ll hopefully post a trip report tonight !!!) and I revealed this little thing from the mud. I believe the brachiopods on the flip side are Derbyia crassa. If you could help me with my little mystery, I’d really appreciate it! From the Pennsylvanian Naco Formation of Arizona.

Found this while sorting matrix for micros. It's shaped like a brachiopod or bivalve shell, strongly concavo-convex. It has widely-spaced spines and very fine growth lines that follow the margin of the shell. I found two of them, and they are about 4 - 5 mm in diameter. My best guess is that they are "larval" shells of the gastropod Spiniplatyceras rarispina that have had the protoconch break off. I can't think of any brachiopods from that locality and time period that would have spines like that. It reminds me of the Permian Echinaurus, lol. Any thoughts? @Tidgy's Dad, @FossilDAWG

I though maybe the invert folks would get a kick out of these two limestone slabs. I picked them up several years ago when driving home from Kentucky along the AA highway. I cleaned them up a bit, but with the soda rig that @Gizmo loaned me. I don't really know what the critters are, but they look neat.

I love finding multiple fossils. I don't just mean multiple specimens in a single rock, I mean fossils that show evidence of more than one life-form. Shells with burrow traces, for one example. Dung beetle balls. Predation marks. And particularly, epibionts. Here I have a fairly ordinary specimen of the brachiopod Tropidoleptus carinatus. Ordinary, that is, until a closer look is taken.... This specimen supported an variety of other critters on its pedicle valve. Whether the epibionts took hold while the brachiopod was alive, or colonized the dead shell, I don't know; I would speculate the former, as the brachiopod is articulated. I think it is likely that the whole living community was buried together by mud. So who's here? Let's take a closer look. We have several examples of Cornulites hamiltoniae. Some are (relatively) large, while others are very small: Two more Cornulites pictures, then we'll see who else lived here!

On Monday the 23rd of December I went on a trip up to Columbia County in Pennsylvania before heading back to my parents for Christmas. The area is known as the home of Bloomsburg University (not related to the business nor businessman) and there are numerous road cuts and quarries that can be explored. My task today was to explore six locations that all exposed the Stoney Creek Beds of the Trimmers Rock formation (upper Devonian). One site I had been to in my teen years but I'd not visited it since while the rest were all prospects to see what they had. My first stop is a hillside cut on private property. There are not many houses around so I knocked on the closest one and spoke to the homeowners. They said the land belonged to a nearby farmer but said they doubted the owner would mind if I was just poking around for fossils. With that I proceeded to the quarry and started to look around. The rock was tilted at a high angle to the southeast and exposed for about 50-60' along the hillside. I could see the trend of the beds to be east northeast as well. All of this confirmed that the exposure was part of an anticline/syncline structure that trended WSW to ENE. This conforms to the regional geology of the Appalachians for this part of Pennsylvania. Back to the quarry which I believe the Farmer was likely using as a gravel pit since it seemed like a front end loader or bulldozer could easily knock the rock off the wall and then be carried elsewhere to shore up muddy farm roads. I found quite a bit of material here with the fossils generally concentrated into thin bands within a muddy to slightly sandy rock. Generally one does not find terribly great preservation and all the fossils are molds as the original shell material has been leached away over the years. The best finds are when you get a shell layer to split open and you can see the coquina that was formed. Three species of Brachiopod dominate the fauna in the Stoney Creek Beds: Spinulocosta, Mucrospirifer, and Leiorhynchus. There are other fauna present but they are more the exception than the rule. I did find one rock that has thin Bryozoan branches and some rocks with Pelecypods, Crinoiod stems and possible Cephalopds. The thin bands of fossilized material and limited fauna are what led Paleontologists from the PA Geological Survey to infer the collections of shell material to be a in situ population that had material occasionally concentrated by a slight current. Thus you often see fully articulated valves of the Brachiopods and delicate features like the spines of Spinulocosta and wings of Mucrospirifer still present. (Pennsylvania Geology magazine, vol. 12, issue 5, pg. 8-13, Jon Inners, 1981) What I brought home A couple of examples of the hash layers when you split them open A Leiorhynchonellid (Leiorhynchus globuliforme? <-- I'm unsure if the species name is correct) internal shell mold. I spent a few hours looking around this quarry and then headed to the next potential spot. That wound up being very overgrown and with no rock showing so I skipped to the third spot. This one is a large roadcut with the beds tilted to the southeast. I did not find as much here as there did not appear to be as many fossiliferous beds exposed. In the talus at the base of the cut I did find a few pieces including a shell bed that included what I believe to be a Spinatrypa. Partial examples of Spinatrypa with spines intact. A nearby covered bridge I left this site after about an hour due to a lack of finds and headed to the next spot which was the type locality for the Stoney Creek Beds. Cont....

Hi there! Now that Christmas and New Year's are done, I'm trying to continue organizing and labeling my fossils before I head back to work on Monday. I'm hoping I can get some help from you regarding the identities of 2 specimens: Specimen #1: a brachiopod from the Miocene (Burdigalian) of Sesimbra, Portugal: Specimen #2: two fish from the Eocene Green River Formation of Kemmerer, Wyoming: (fish on the left:) (fish on the right:) Thanks in advance for your help! Monica

Hi All, I spent some time this afternoon to do some research on the brachiopod Mucrospirifer mucronatus as I was writing a blog post. I'd heard from friends a while back that someone was combining a number of species of Mucrospirifer into M. mucronatus due to similarities. I decided to see if I could find anything to verify this and would up locating a paper from 1964 where John Tillman did just that. ("Variation in Species of Mucrospirifer from Middle Devonian Rocks of Michigan, Ontario, and Ohio", John R. Tillman, Journal of Paleontology, Vol. 38, No. 5 (Sep., 1964), pp. 952-964) The TLDR of the paper is that, M. arkonensis, M. alpenensis, M. attenuatus, M. multiplicatus, and M. prolificus are combined into M. mucronatus. As well as M. profundus, M. grabaui, M. intermedia, M. latus are combined into M. thedfordensis. Furthermore I found a doctoral thesis by Delpfine Ellen Welsh from Virginia Tech that further summarized these changes as part of her study of the evolution of Mucrospirifer across West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, and Ontario. Welch, Delpfine Ellen. Geographical variation and evolution in the middle Devonian brachiopod, MUCROSPIRIFER. Diss. Virginia Tech, 1991 "The most recent systematic work is that of Tillman (1964) who studied the variation of Mucrospirifer from the Middle Devonian rocks of Michigan. Ontario. and Ohio by measuring previously described species and constructing histograms for each set of measurements. Tillman studied characters emphasized in previous descriptions: number of costae, width of costae, length of interarea, presence or absence of medial ridge in the sulcus and medial groove on the fold, presence or absence of mucronate points at the cardinal extremities, size of shell, width/length ratios, and the shape of the fold and sulcus. Tillman (1964) concluded that number of costae depends on the age and/or size of the individual, as does length of interarea. Width of costae was not constant even within a given population. Development of the medial ridge and groove in the sulcus and fold, respectively, was quite variable except in specimens from the Arkona Shale and Genshaw Formation where they are usually well formed. In observing growth lines on individual specimens. Tillman found that all previously described specimens of Mucrospirifer are mucronate at some stage in their development. This includes specimens from the Arkona Shale which as adults do not appear mucronate because of the addition of lamellae that decrease the degree of deflection at the anterior border at the cardinal extremities and increase the shell thickness wi'thout significantly changing the length or width of the specimen. Because the cardinal extremities are rarely preserved and the growth lines are very difficult to trace, Tillman determined width/length ratios to be of doubtful value. He found that as the angle made by the plane of commissure at the fold increases, the height of the fold decreases, and he also found that angle to be highly variable in all populations. The shape of the fold and sulcus and the shape and general proportions of the shell were the characters determined by Tillman (1964) to be most useful in distinguishing species. Because he observed such an overlap among the species in the range of variation for the characters studied, Tillman felt that no more than two species could be identified. Tillman retained the species M. mucronatus and M. thedfordensis and considered all the rest to be variations of these two. He placed arkonensis, attenuatus, multiplicatus, alpenensis, and prolificus into synonymy with M. mucronatus; and thedfordensis, profundus, intermedia, latus, and grabaui into synonymy with M. thedfordensis. Tillman (1964) states that "M. mucronatus (Conrad) differs from M. thedfordensis (Shimer and Grabau) in having a broadly U-shaped sulcus with flattened floor and subangular edges and a gently convex to flattened fold"; "M. thedfordensis (Shimer and Grabau) differs from M. mucronatus (Conrad) in having a U-shaped to V-shaped sulcus, never with a flattened floor; a low moderately convex fold, never with a flattened surface." This was all news to me but is helpful when identifying what I have found. This is very much a "lumper" situation where Tillman found that the variation used by others to differentiate species was not valid as it all represented different growth stages or were influenced by local environments. I don't like having to change labels every time a species or genus gets it's name changes (I'm talking about you Eldredgeops and Vinlandostrophia!) but this makes sense to me due to the similarities visually of specimens from distant locations. Besides, at least we get to keep the Mucrospirifer genus name. Thus this specimen from the Mahantango of Mucrospirifer mucronatus from the Mahantango formation in Pennsylvania is now the same species .... As this this formerly Mucrospirifer arkonensis example from the Arkona formation of Ontario is.

As fall has finished dropping leaves and caused Poison Ivy and most insects to go dormant, I have been exploring some prospects in the Paleozoic of Central Pennsylvania. On one trip back to help my folks get a Christmas tree, I had time to spend and hour or so at an abandoned quarry that exposed Ordovician aged rock. Unlike the exposures of Ordovician rock in the Cincinnati/Louisville region of the US, or southern Ontario, or the Minnesota/Iowa area, Central PA is not know for heaps of fossiliferous limestone or shale. One has to do a little research to find what formations have fossils, and then try and find an exposure that you can prospect. I found one such quarry from an old guidebook out in Cumberland County, PA. It has exposures of the Chambersburg formation which is known to have fossils and is also known to have a bed of rock that contains an unusual Echinoderm called "Nidulites". My goal was to verify if fossils were present at the site and then try to locate the "Nidulites" bed. View of the quarry wall. The rock was tilted NE in one direction (away from the camera) and N in another direction (to the left of the photo). I started at the south end of the quarry (right side of pic above) and started to look through the fallen scree and exposed rock layers. Not finding anything I moved north along the walls of the pit until I started to find some hints of fossils in the rocks. Mostly cross sections in massive limestone, but at least there were fossils there. This is what it looked like along the walls and in the talus along their base. There were multiple pieces of limestone with Calcite crystals, both massive and crystalline, in some areas as the veins filled in cracks within the rock ages ago . I found one piece that had a couple of small Fluorite cubes on it, a rare find in the field! I finally started to find some fossils in the talus concentrated in one area but could not figure out the layer they came from. Preservation was ok but as they came from fractured massive rock, completeness was not the best. Here are my finds: Leptanea sp. Brachiopod Sowerbyella sp. Brachiopod Possibly part of an Isolteus sp. genal spine Unknowns So not too bad for a couple of hours of looking. I'll have to visit the quarry again in the future and see if I can find more in the talus and maybe trace the bed that the better fossils come from. No "Nidulites" either, but I am not discouraged. I confirmed that fossils can be found here, I just need to do some more looking.

Found this imbedded in a rock and we’re trying to ID it. It looked to us like the back of a crab. It’s approx. 7 cm across. Found in NE Oklahoma, near Tahlequah, high on hillside. Does that make it Devonian period at the latest? Please assist.

I’m going through my finds from my last hunting trip and came across these brachiopod valves that I picked up. I grabbed them, not because they were the best preserved finds of the day, but because they are the worst. To clarify, I believe the initial preservation wasn’t too bad, but it’s the weathering and subsequent degradation of the fossil that caught my interest. Most valves that I find in the area (Upper Ordovician road cut) are in pieces. I presumed it was because the valves weathered out of the matrix and THEN were washed around by rain run off, trampled, exposed to the elements, etc. before breaking into pieces. However, these valves are cracked while still being attached to the underlying matrix. They remind me of mud that has dried in the sun. It seems to show that some of the valves at least cracked and split BEFORE coming completely out of the matrix. Then they weather out in pieces. I find it interesting to see examples of them in the middle of the process. The matrix looks like dirt in the picture, but it is hard as rock and the valve fragments are stuck fast. I think this is what is known as mudstone(?). I’m sure the fragments would come off with a little dental pick work, but they are not so loose as to brush off or come off by picking with the finger nail.

Monday morning was dreary here in Central Kentucky. The sky was cloudy grey, and the rain was sputtering off and on. I didn't let that dampen my spirits though. I had planned to go fossil hunting and nothing was going to ruin my day! I grabbed my hunting gear, a cup of coffee, dropped my daughter off at daycare, and headed out. I arrived at the Upper Ordovician (Drakes Formation) spot that I had found this year. The last time I visited this place I didn't have time to really enjoy myself. It was more of a smash and grab. A rush to see if anything was actually there and to grab what I could. This time I was determined to spend more time at my new found hunting grounds. Not even a little wind and rain would stop me. After about a 45 minute drive I arrived at the road cut. The last time I visited, I looked through the scree at the base of the cut and found items that, over time, had washed down from the rain. Many of these pieces didn't fair well with the 5-6 meter drop. After a few minutes of looking at the strata of the cut, I determined that the most fossiliferous layers were at the top 2 meters or so. I decided that I needed to check out the top instead of the bottom. I'm glad I did! After a short walk and hike up the gentlest slope I could find, I made it to the top. This is what I found. A loose layer of dirt (well mud since it was raining...) with coral heads and fragments everywhere! All different shapes and sizes. whole specimens just a few cm across to ones that where half a meter or more.

After a Thanksgiving visit to Cincinnati, I took the time to explore a few rock cuts on the way back to snowy Minnesota. Here are two curiosities that I found in a creek bed in Indiana. I was in Ordovician, Richmond Formation at the break between Whitewater and Liberty. 1. A tiny brachiopod. 2. Inarticulate brachiopod?? If so, can it be identified?

I got this a while back with a little notecard with information about brachiopods in general, sadly, none of the information was specified to this specimen. Can anyone help me out on what genus this is perhaps?

I bought these when I was very young, infact, the small ammonite was the first fossil I ever had. They are all cheap commercial fossils that never came with labels, and the ones that do have labels are unsatisfactory to say the least. I'm hoping some of you chaps know what some of these are and the vague area they're from.

The next few days are fall break for me, so I'm home from school. I decided to take the day today to explore two sites in Northern Illinois. The first is an outcrop of the Upper Ordovician Maquoketa Group in Kendall County, IL. I learned about this site from a recent trip report posted here, and found it after a little detective work. I was hoping to find Tentaculites oswegoensis, a small conical fossil of unknown affinities which is only found in this area. It only took me a few minutes before I found a few. I only stayed for 20 minutes or so, as Tentaculites is really the only well preserved fossil in these exposures. There were some brachiopod and bryozoan fragments, but nothing noteworthy.

Fossils under the KY I-75 bridge at Clay's Ferry video link Featuring Mark Montgomery and Dan Phelps Mr. Phelps identifies the fossils: Brachiopod pieces, Ordovician High-Spired snail Rafinesquina Brachiopod identified Flat brachiopod Constantine Rafinesque story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_Samuel_Rafinesque About Dan Phelps Thanks to Will _ for helping me to find the location in the KAS registration lobby at Berea College. by Darrell Barnes

I Found this last week on what I believe some call Lake Michigan Brownstone ? 3 5/8th in x 4 inch. Has Bryozoans and one I believe is a brachiopod 15 mm wide attached to the side. Bob