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Over the winter holidays I visited a couple of exposures of the Mississippian (Chesterian) Bangor Limestone in Alabama. I found a ton of really cool fossils, including a number of brachiopods. I was able to identify the vast majority of the brachiopods I found, but I struggled to identify the following. Does anyone recognize them? #3 and #4 look to me to be Composita sp. but the only species of Composita from the Bangor Limestone that I saw is Composita subquadrata and these did not seem to match. Any help would be greatly appreciated! #1 #2 #3 #4 #5

While uncovering chondrichthyan teeth from the Burlington fish layer, I have come upon many things I can not identify. In general, the only items having a dark color in this light colored matrix are fish parts. So my assumption is that they are fish oriented...... Here are some examples of items found that are likely not fish teeth. coprolites? Dermal denticles? Just taking stabs in the dark! @Coco, don't pick on me since my measuring stick is not seen well. I will add specimen size to each for you! 1. 2.0 by 1.2 cm 2. 1.5 by 2 cm 3. .8cm by 3.0cm 4. 1.5 by 1.2 cm 5. 1.0 by .5cm

I run across these guys frequently in the Mississippian Redwall Limestones around Arizona's Verde Valley. They are generally accompanied by lots of Crinoids and solitary Rugose Corals. They're always this oval shape with segmented structure. They look like an isopod, to me, but could be some other crustacean. Any help out there for the identification of these "bugs?"

These are two specimens I have found that I can’t confidently identify. I don’t know exactly where they are from but the sedimentary rock they are preserved in is likely from the Mississippian. I live in Northeast Alabama where there are quarries that extract shale and limestone from the Mississippian. Since I don’t know the exact locality they came from I cannot provide an exact time period. One is a white, wedge shaped fossil that I speculate might be a leaf. The other I am unsure of if it is even a fossil but it appears to be a fish, but it could just be crystals that formed in the shale.

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-

Hello, I’m hoping someone can tell me whether or not this is a crab pincer? If not, what could it be? I found it in Alabama on the Tennessee River. (Mississippian) Thanks!

I’m hoping someone can identify this for me. I found it in the Tennessee River. (Mississippian/Tuscumbia Limestone) Thanks!

Can anyone tell me what is protruding from this small rock? Is it some type of coral? I found it by the Tennessee River. (Mississippian/Tuscumbia Limestone) Thanks!

Hello, I found this small rock on the Tennessee River. (Mississippian/Tuscumbia Limestone) I’m hoping someone can tell me what all is in it. Thanks!

Hi, I’m hoping someone can identify the larger fossil bits on this rock. I found it on the bank of the Tennessee River. (Mississippian/Tuscumbia Limestone) Thanks!

Hello Everyone, I found this fabulous rock which is chock full of brachiopods on the bank of the Tennessee River today. When I first broke it open, the brachiopods were all relatively intact. Unfortunately, several split and/or started crumbling off while I was trying to gently clean off some of the river grime. I’m hoping someone can tell me the simplest way to go about cleaning/preserving these brachiopods with the least damage? Thanks!

Hi Everyone, In the latter half of last month I took a two week trip to Kentucky and Tennessee. My sister, her husband, two of her adult children, and my parents all live in the Elizabethtown/Louisville area and I was able to spend some quality time with them. Fossil collecting was also part of my agenda. Herb, my primary fossil collecting partner in Kentucky and I had a three day trip down to Tennessee planned. Before I went on that expedition, I was out with my brother-in-law driving around central Kentucky. He dropped me off for 20 minutes at the Upper Mississippian site at Wax where the Glen Dean Formation is exposed in a roadcut. I picked these up:

Don't think I've posted these before. From (as near as I can tell) the Caballero Formation, lower Mississippian. North of Lake Valley, New Mexico. My best guesses are either Cupularostrum or Eumetria. Alas, I'm sometimes lucky if I get the right phylum. Also embarrassed myself with this on this particular trip: I breathlessly identified this as a really spectacular algal mound. Well, no; I had navigated up the wrong canyon, and in this geologically complex area, I wasn't even looking at sedimentary rock. This is spectacularly flow-banded rhyolite. If I can't tell a rhyolite from an algal mound, maybe I should just pack it in now ...

Having moved back to Missouri after many years in Texas, fossil hunting, and life in general, is an entirely new endeavor. It is good to have a friend and mentor to help me adjust to living in Missouri again. Our fellow TFF member Raistlin has taken me under his wing. Not only has he been helping me in the fossil hunting aspect, but he went as far as recommending me for a job at where he works. He even went so far as to make sure I was on the same team so we would be able to fossil hunt together. I couldn't ask for anything more. Raistlin and I were able to make our first trip together earlier this week. He took me to a Fern Glen outcrop that he had been to before. On our way back home, we made a few stops at some roadcuts to check them out. He was more than happy to point things out to me and help me identify some of my finds. Raistlin inspecting the formation. Don't you hate it when you feel like you've got something hanging over your head? Some of our finds from the Fern Glen formation: One of my finds from a roadcut on the way home:

I collected this brachiopod showing part of the brachidium yesterday - quite rare to see in this area. It's partially silicified and I was thinking of perhaps etching it out a little further. It's also a good geopetal example, with sediment in the bottom (graded if you look closely), the remaining void above being filled with calcite that has helped preserve the brachidium. On checking my photos, I realised that there were some nice clear foraminifera, about 1mm across, which I haven't really noticed much before from this limestone. These photos are just of the rough surface, taken just submerged which reduces the surface bumpiness and allows better contrast (much better than just wetting it). I think I've managed to identify the two(?) types shown here though I'm very happy to be corrected! There are many more in there and I'm going to cut and polish some of it. Great Limestone, Pendleian, upper Mississippian. Weardale, Co. Durham, England. Scale in mm. (The first Endothyranopsis is at the top near the rule, and another is halfway between the 10 and the rock edge. See blowups below.) ?Endothyranopsis sp. The white blob to the left of the obvious specimen may be the same species seen at right angles to it. Palaeotextulariid - I looked at a few genera of these and they're hard to distinguish from each other in a random section. More palaeotextulariids - at least two specimens Another ?Endothyranopsis sp. (actually on the reverse of the rock). General view - it might be zoomable to see various forams and bits - this is how I was looking for them and it seemed to be easier than with my x20 binocular microscope. Some good burrows showing up as well, especially in the bottom half. Finally, a view under water of the brachiopod - shows some quite jazzy calcite around the brachidium. I'm not sure if there's more than one loop here or just crystals growing out from a loop axis. Sparry calcite in the middle.

I found a new place to fossil hunt and it has many more fossils then the normal places I go. Lots and lots of coral, brachiopods, cephalopods, and crystallization. It honestly looks like a coral reef of some kind. I live in middle Tennessee and it's mostly Mississippian and ordovician in my area but there are some areas of Silurian-Devonian. I found this fossil first and thought it was some sort of larger cephalopod, but there were some strange things about it and I started to change my mind. It is a torpedo shaped fossil with crystallization. I will start with the pattern pictures first to show you what I mean and then I will post a picture of the whole thing with a size reference. There are spots distributed around it but they seem to be symmetrical on both "sides," some are clearer than others. There are scalloped edges on the "bottom" of it. There is also an upside down shaped V at the "front-bottom" of it that I think looks kind of like a fish jaw. I do realize that if this is a fish it is very rare for this time period, especially in this sort of shape. If you do believe it is a deteriorated cephalopod, if you could just explain the V shape and the spots, that would help me see it as well. Thanks

Tammy and I made our first post-pandemic roadtrip and we went to Chicago to see family. Decided to drive as I was not yet comfortable with airports and airplanes. I had hoped to visit a site in southern Illinois where blastoids used to be plentiful and easy to find. Sadly, that site was mistreated and is no longer available. Members here on the forum suggested several alternatives which should produce the blastoids that I longed to hunt for. We found that the large (and well known) roadcut just north of Sulphur, Indiana was along the route (kind of) on our return trip and so it was added to the itinerary. We drove down from a last lunch in Chicago's Chinatown and crossed Indiana to check into a hotel in a small town just west of Louisville, Kentucky. The plan was to drive west to visit this Chesterian (Late Mississippian) site and see what we could find. We got up early, refueled, and had a quick breakfast since we planned on returning to the hotel and cleaning-up before the 11am checkout time. The morning proved to be much more overcast than the preceding evening. Things weren't looking promising as we were getting out to the site. You can see in the photos that the sky did not show promise of cooperating with us and the pelting rain along the highway was less than encouraging. The rain had slowed to a light drizzle and we arrived at the roadcut which provided nice wide shoulders to pull off the road a safe distance. Tammy decided she'd let me do the scouting and see if it was worth leaving the dry warmth of the car and so she stayed behind with her tablet to entertain her while I made good use of my raincoat. It took a while to find a good access point to climb up the first and lowest wall of this stepped roadcut. I walked most of the way down the road only to see the wall get taller and less accessible. I crossed over the road and walked back the way I had come till I found an opening. The rock face would have been easier to scale had it not all become quite slick from the rain. Once up on the first terrace level I walked along till I spotted a means of climbing up another level. I was headed up to the loose talus slope between the second and third levels. Along the way I spotted what I believe might be the Eastern Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina)--the shell patterns seem to be quite variable on this species but I'm sure @Tidgy's Dad could confirm or refute. When I finally started seeing crinoid stem segments and a number of small rugose corals I knew I had found the level I was looking for. It didn't take too long to spot the first blastoid looking like a pentagonally symmetrical marble. Most of the little Pentremites sp. blastoids were in the pea to garbanzo size range. Many of them were loose but a few were still attached to a chunk of the matrix. I spotted a little piece of the matrix that looked to be peppered with a bunch of semi-articulated plates from what I'm guessing is a crinoid calyx. This needs further inspection with the aid of some magnification. I took some in situ shots of my finds as I figured I'd probably write a post on this site. I selected a number of the nicer finds and upon review of the images I noticed that had missed things that I could clearly see in the images. I was so focused on developing the blastoid search image (rounded items with the pentagonally V-notched edge on the top) that I forgot that the Archimedes screw shaped bryozoans were also here. You can clearly see an Archimedes screw bryozoan actually touching the blastoid I picked up--talk about tunnel vision. https://www.uky.edu/KGS/fossils/fossil-month-09-2018-Archimedes.php The clouds were starting to break up and a little increase in light levels was welcome to aid the search. I could just barely see the car where Tammy was through the dense trees that cover this roadcut. I had tried to call her to let her know I hadn't fallen on my noggin yet but our cell phone reception was pretty poor here. Made a mental note to bring along some inexpensive walkie-talkie radios if we ever find ourselves split up and trying to communicate where cell phone coverage is poor. The rain had made the clay on the talus slope very soft and slippery. I spent a lot of time with multiple points of contact to the ground--holding on with both hands usually to avoid possibly losing my footing. Having my head held close to the ground in order to see the small blastoids obviously works better if you scan the area slowly. I knew I had limited time here and was searching somewhat quickly but I'm surprised that I missed this second blastoid just a hand-width away from the one on top that I did collect. It's also quite obvious (now) that I missed this other Archimedes that is nearly touching the blastoid underneath. At least I was getting pretty good at spotting even the tiniest of the blastoid specimens. I found a larger blastoid that had been flattened a bit and I spotted the first brachiopod. It was odd to see the brachiopods being so relatively rare as they were always so common at the few Devonian sites I'd hunted. I finally remembered that there were Archimedes at this site but only after I spotted this one. There is no telling how many more I missed. My time was running out and I was looking for one last find of the day before quitting and then trying to find a path back down (you never remember the path up as it looks different from above). Going down is usually more dangerous than up and so I spent extra effort looking for descents that wouldn't land me in the ER. Happily, the last find of the day was one of the largest of the blastoids. That seemed to put a cap on this 45 minute excursion into the Mississippian (my first fossil hunt from this geologic age). From up on top you can see the interchange with route 64 heading back to Lexington which is the route we took to arrive later that day in Asheville, North Carolina to visit friends we haven't see in 2 years. It was a fun little excursion and signs that a longer hunt would be even more productive. The fossil-bearing layer is about 2/3 the way up to the top of the slope. I spotted some better access points on the way back down and if I ever get back to this locality I hope to explore with with many more hours of time to dedicate to the hunt. Cheers. -Ken

This is my first "new topic" post to the FF, so I hope I'm doing this correctly. If you have a microscope or equivalent and a current or potential interest in micro-fossils, you might enjoy collecting at the following historic locality: Mississippian Salem Limestone, about 5 miles east of Salem, Indiana off Rt. 160; Spergen (Spurgeon) Hill, railroad cut (Manon RR) paralleling S. Harristown Rd, 0.75 mi north of Rt. 160; south end of Trackside Road; approximately 140 meters S of Harristown, Washington Co., Indiana; diminuitive fauna; Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) coordinates: 16S 585024.04 4272332.25. My first introduction to micro-fossils was in a paleontology lab I took during the 70’s with the focus of study on the foraminiferid, Endothyra baileyi (now called Globoendothyra baileyi). These tiny specimens were labeled “Spergen Hill” on their container without further description. A few years later, I was able to locate the source of the specimens as the type locality for the Salem Limestone (formerly, Spergen or Spergen Hill Limestone) of Middle Mississippian or Meramecean (Valmeyerian) age. Sratigraphically, it sits above the Harrodsburg Limestone and beneath the St. Louis Limestone. The locality is a railroad cut at Spergen Hill, just south of Harristown, Washington County, Indiana. The cut is relatively narrow and much caution is advised upon the advent of trains entering the cut. The rock at this locality is a medium to coarse grained, tan to gray, crossbedded calcarenite containing mostly microfossils. Macrofossils (somewhat sparse) are present in the formation but nowhere near the quantity of the microfossils (G. baileyi has been estimated at 1,000 / in3 in some portions of the strata). Besides single-celled eukaryotes (e.g., Globoendothyra), representatives of most of the major phyla are present in diminuitive form or as tiny fragments of the macro fauna (spines, plates, columnals, etc.) I’ve visited the location at least three times in the past and besides collecting macrofossils on these visits, I have also accumulated a quantity of the rock containing the microfossils. On arriving home, I pulverize the collected rock with a sledge to a fine granular size and wash and strain the residue through a porous cloth to remove any extra fine material (rock dust) The washed residue is then dried and placed in labeled plastic bags. Then, in the dead of winter when collecting is not possible for me and the “urge” to collect is compelling, I drag out a bag, place some of the residue in a shallow container under my scope and go fossil collecting and identifying! I use a very fine-pointed forceps, which I periodically ground to a piece of rubber (to avoid static electricity buildup) to pick out fossils from the residue. I find it a bit better for collecting the micros from this locality than using a wetted fine paintbrush. This location has been estimated to contain over 100 species of invertebrates on a micro level. More information can be found at http://www.fallsoftheohio.org/SalemMicrofossils.html. The attached photos were taken for a program I was giving on Indiana fossils to illustrate single-celled eukaryotes (Protozoa). The first photo shows a random selection of micro-specimens of various phyla collected from the residue with an emphasis on the G. baileyi. The second and third show sorted G. baileyi specimens and G. baileyi specimens with matrix, respectively. Two free texts with plates are available on some of the Spergen Hill microfauna at the following websites: Whitfield, R.P. On the fauna of the Lower Carboniferous limestones of Spergen Hill, Ind., with a revision of the descriptions of its fossils hitherto published, and illustrations of the species from the original type series. Bulletin of the AMNH; v. 1, article 5. (free download) https://books.google.com/books?id=ebYPAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA241&lpg=PA241&dq=whitfield,+R.P.+On+the+fauna+of+the+limestones+of+Spergen+Hill&source=bl&ots=iFhHvpc7qf&sig=XNpUBo45hKPRICv5fLdb0AlJktA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=pO8_Ve70G-vlsATq-4EQ&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAg Cumings, E.R. et al. Fauna of the Salem Limestone of Indiana. (free download). https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fscholarworks.iu.edu%2Fdspace%2Fhandle%2F2022%2F12889&ei=G_o_Va3_CveasQSCu4HADA&usg=AFQjCNGsTNbr2RKBBebd6bnuISOcqvMsPw

So far the dimensions of what's showing is 15.2mmx6mmx1.5mm & it's starting to curve back into the rock. With no sign of the end yet. I'm taking my time & investigating the piece after every couple scrapes. Whatever it is, it's not as hard as the surrounding material. I'm going to wait till I get a response before I do anymore. Just in case any of you think I should turn it over to a professional so I don't screw up whatever it is.

Hello everyone I have this strange little Brachiopod which i know nothing about. Its about just over 3/8th In. I don't know were its from, i got it from someone Can anyone tell me a possible ID and if it looks from a particular area. Is it Mississippian? Thank you

Here is a post prep picture of Platycrinites found on a early July fossil hunt in SE Iowa (see previous trip report). These crinoids have a columnar stem with a twisted pattern, making them very interesting. My daughter can't look at it without thinking tapeworm. I have to somewhat agree but still see the beauty in this crinoid!!

I have been working with Mississippian age nautiloids in Kentucky for the past 40 years. Years ago I found two very complete specimens in the Nancy Member of the Borden Formation in a creek east of Morehead, Kentucky. The one was a small but very complete Orthoconic nautiloid of the genus Michelinoceras sp. which is commonly found in that area. The other was found very close to the other and at the time I thought it was another Michelinoceras sp. Recently I was looking at it and saw the shape was much different. Michelinoceras is very conical and the shape is very round to slightly oval with the Siphuncle in the center. The unknown specimen is also orthoconic and shows the living chamber and upper shell is just lightly oval similar to Michelinoceras sp. but the end of the shell thins on the sides to the shape of a Baculite shape. The specimen is highly replaced with calcite and the siphuncle is hard too determine. What may be the siphuncle is located at the upper part of what I think is the venter. If I am correct it would be a Bactritida type of nautiloid that were common in the Devonian. I have researched the treatise as well as many papers on Mississippian age cephalopods I can find. I am hoping someone may have ran across a similar specimen. The first and second picture is of the Michelinoceras sp. specimen. Approx. 4 inches long and typical Michelinoceras specimens. The rest of the picture are of the unknown specimen, the red circle is the area where I believe the siphuncle is located.

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.

Buried in Stone: Shores of area lakes, rivers ideal for digging up fossils By Brian D. King, Tahlequah Daily, Oklahoma Yours, Paul H.