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So, long story short, I'm writing a document up to help newbies to palaeontology - primarily from the UK - it focuses on British fossils a lot, but the general areas of it can be applied to anywhere. And that was besides the point... Basically, I'm looking for an eloquent way of citing the difference between crinoid columnals and ossicles, and I can't seem to get the wording right. Help a fossil friend out here Isaac

Hello all, and thanks for being here! I am looking for an ID on these fossils for my own gratification! My focus is in archaeology, so I come across fossils often during surface collection adventures! A little about the location: These were found in Nancy, Kentucky, USA on a partially man made flood-control lake called Lake Cumberland (Cumberland river basin/Cumberland plateau). The banks are rich with small to medium chert concretions, fossiliferous sedimentary stones, and small to medium iron inclusions. Preservation of these specimens are, generally, fair to good. I found this piece along with horn corals, only a couple of brachiopods, and a wealth of crinoid stem pieces in less than 20 minutes! I thank you all in advance for any information you can give me! -Skelly B. Specimen 1- Specimen 2 - Specimen 3 -

I'm a newbie to The Fossil Forum. I hike in the hilly areas of south-central Indiana (mainly Morgan, Monroe & Brown counties) whenever I get a chance and many times I end up walking the rocky creek beds looking for fossils & unusual rocks. These creeks are rich in geodes and there is a lot of shale & limestone. I believe that some of the unusual finds are geodized fossils. I have several that I'd like to share with the forum to get opinions from the experts. Attaching multiple photos (15 total: 3 groups of 5) of 4 different specimens with the first five photos showing a pair which have similarities. Thanks in advance for any input.

We find tons of Crinoids in our area, Missouri, but have never run across one with this design. Would anyone know the name for this type of species?

Found on Manitoulin Island. I believe at Kagawong... but unfortunately, it's been a while and I didn't make any notes at the time.

Hello everyone, I have this fossil I found years back and need help to confirm what it's is. I found in Chester, Illinois, Mississippian. I've been told it might be a partial Crinoid Calyx. It's this correct, thank you

Found on the shore of the North Channel at Little Current, Manitoulin Island, Ontario. The side of the piece features a transverse view of a Crinoid. Can this be ID'd more specifically? Above is some sort of shell. Can this be ID'd? There are various other small fossils, though I don't know if those are identifiable.

I finally had a chance to organize my fossils from my last excursion to Iowa. The following 5 fossils are new to me and I struck out trying to identify them. Hence the need for some assistance. They are from the Burlington Limestone/ Mississippian of SE Iowa. 1. This appears to be in the shape of a crinoid cup. It is large and fits Cactocrinus imperator which is suppose to have a smooth surface in the Burlington. 2. The left side is broke away. Reminds me of a bellerophon like fossil but can find no mention. 3. There are lots of shark teeth in the upper Burlington. But this looks more bone like. Your thoughts?? 4. This brachiopod is long and skinny and has been broken off on the left side. Most species listed are broader than long, so this one has me confused. 5. I believe this is a brachiopod but who knows!! Flat as a pancake. Can't find an image remotely close to this so maybe crinoidal?? Thanks for any insight.

Found these yesterday. Getting them out of the rock was a job. I was wore out afterward. https://imgur.com/a/wWGIEst I believe they are Phanocrinus.

I’m looking for some information regarding this crinoid. It looks typical of the fossil crinoids I’ve seen from Morocco but I’d really appreciate a more learned perspective. A family member is thinking of acquiring this specimen. Only photo I have unfortunately. Thanks. @Tidgy's Dad

Today I went on an online expedition. I got up at 8:00 am on my last day of vacation and found some really nice souvenirs. A few need repair, but overall they are really good finds. I did not have to travel overseas to find them either. Next week it is back to work work. I have another week off sometime later. I am looking at going to bring tools and overnight near Kincardine and some Bruce Peninsula for a color trip. expedition. I will start with the Comura

I found this piece on the Missouri River outside of Kansas City. There were Carboniferous fossils in the same area. It looks like a crinoid stem, except it’s smooth? Also, the broken ends don’t show any sort of star pattern. I was curious, any ideas?

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.

Hello everyone! I recently purchased two fossils, they were both sold to me as Ordovician the crinoid being from Wisconsin and the brachiopod from Illinois. @connorp has told me in a different thread that the dolomites of the region also preserve Silurian fossils and that these look much more like that. Doing a quick Google search I did find something that looks very similar to the crinoid I have, but I don't know enough about these animals or the area they come from to be certain of the ID. Here is the crinoid in question: To me this calyx looked quite similar to that of siphonocrinus both in the gener shape and the plates covering it's surface. Here are some pictures I found online with the region that looked especially similar circled in red: Along with it I also bought this Pentamerid brachiopod which could very likely also be Silurian. Could it belong to the genus Pentamerus?

I picked up this crinoid filled matrix to put in the children's fossil pit. But as I examined it, I am "imagining" a crinoid crown, albeit, disarticulated. Any thoughts? Am I seeing things? Wishful thinking? Thanks Mike

Calling this a Picasso pebble, it's like a tiny work of art and I have no idea how to refer to this type of fossilization but it's very cool. Anyway, really curious what the two columns are that appear to be joined, the gravels it came from are mostly Eagle Ford but include QAL, a little Woodbine, and older.

While heading to visit family in southern Indiana, I decided to leave a day early to do a bit of collecting in the Cincinnatian. The first stop was, as usual, St. Leon, to look for the famous Flexicalymene rollers. In the past, I've usually found 2-4 per visit, but was quite lucky this time, walking away with 10 rollers and my first prone. Here are a couple in situ shots. After a couple hours at St. Leon, I headed towards my hotel. As it turned out, it was just down the road from Trammel Fossil Park. I had not been here before. It exposes several formations (which are helpfully marked). I only spent about 20 minutes here but did find a beat up edrioasteroid (my first!) in the Miamitown. I would imagine it is very picked over, but it's a neat place to visit nonetheless. The following day I woke up quite early and drove down into Kentucky to check out a couple spots in the Kope along the AA Highway. Not much success was had, so I decided to head back towards Cinci to visit a popular site where the crinoid Ectenocrinus is often found. Again, little success. That was until I decided to flip over one last rock sitting right next to my car. And as luck would have it, the rock was covered in crinoids. At least half a dozen individuals were visible, but I suspect that many more are buried.

A few weeks back, I happened to accidentally find a fossil while out trail running - my first ever! I found this forum to get help identifying what it was, and figured that would be the end of it. But it turns out that the trail I have been running on for 20 years has lots of fossils, and now I can't stop seeing them! I have been reading this forum and following up with other resources to try to educate myself a little. My mother-in-law was super interested when I showed her a couple that I had picked up, so we decided to go back out there for our very first newbie fossil hunt. My MIL, in her late 70's, hiked up to the top of the mountain with me like it was nothing, and we had a great time poking around. The area we found these in is Devonian, Foreknobs formation. Here are a few of our finds - lots of brachiopods, more crinoids than you can shake a stick at, and some bryozoans! And it sounds like my MIL can't wait to go back - I think this will be a fun activity for the two of us.

I found this little critter in some Pennsylvanian micro matrix I brought home. I am guessing it's an odd crinoid but it is also not like any I've come across. Any info will be appreciated! Size 1/4 inch

Now, I have never seen one of these before. But… it feels like a crinoid piece of some sort. Only two of the rounded edges are visible, but I believe there are six sides to this. It reminds me of a connecting joint piece for a puzzle kit. Found it after cracking open this Coldwater Shale packstone from South Haven, Michigan.

Hey everyone! I found my first fossil last weekend in a creek near the Don River in midtown Toronto. From my knowledge reading through this forum, it seems to be packed with crinoid stem fossils. I’d really appreciate a confirmation, to learn more about the age of the fossil and maybe even the species.