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Hi all I picked this up today whilst walking near a reservoirin the U.K. The geology is Carboniferous, namurian in age. The block is about 6 inches by 6 inches. Thanks

Hi everyone, I've been working on a project about fossilised megaspores found in a Namurian (Late Carboniferous) coal seam in the UK. There are very few papers and photographs of megaspores so classification is a challenge! I have a couple of my unidentified specimens here that have been extracted from the coal, and was wondering if anyone could help me out? Light microscope images are attatched. The maximum diameter of the compressed spore is 1125 µm for Species A, and 1225 µm for Species B. I believe that the depositional environment was a Late Carboniferous swamp forest, dominated by arborescent lycopsids. All the best, Eloise

Hi. week ago i found this one along bryozoans and crinoids of namurian age. gastropods and goniatites are also abundant in this location. Any ideas?

The Namurian cyclothems in West Clare, Ireland originate in an environment of delta systems which deposited sediments in an offshore basin (Clare Basin) and are referred to as the Central Clare Group. There are five cyclothems comprising marine bands (conventionally considered to form the ‘base’ of each cyclothem) and upwards coarsening fine-grained and sandstone sediments. The five cyclothems are named (from oldest to youngest): Tullig, Kilkee, Doonlicky, Cyclothem IV, and Cyclothem V. The marine bands contain - among other fossils - index fossils in the form of ammonoids (goniatites). These index fossils are used to determine the stratigraphy of the cyclothems. Central Clare Group marine bands and goniatite index species (youngest at top) Cyclothem V top - R2c1 - Reticuloceras superbilingue alternatively Bilinguites superbilinguis (Bisat, 1924) Cyclothem V base - R2b - Reticuloceras wrighti alternatively Bilinguites metabilinguis Cyclothem IV base - R2 - Reticuloceras bilingue alternatively Bilinguites bilinguis (Salter, 1864) Doonlicky base - R1c - Reticuloceras reticulatum Kilkee base - R1b3 - Reticuloceras stubblefieldi alternatively Phillipsoceras stubblefieldi Tullig base - R1b2 - Reticuloceras nodosum My problem is the differentiation between these goniatite species in the field. Some of them look quite similar - to me - and in addition, they are preserved as very compressed, often crushed shells. At one location, they are firmly incorporated into concretions which appear to have dried out at some time, showing polygonal cracks filled with calcite; very handsome but even more difficult to identify. Under this topic, I have grouped images of goniatites by location and added information regarding the goniatite species recorded on the Geological Survey Ireland Spatial Resources website for each location. Any help with identification is greatly appreciated! So the first batch of images from Seafield beach, near Quilty village, County Clare, Ireland is in my collection 'ID of goniatites / ammonoids - Seafield'. The Geological Survey Ireland Spatial Resources website records Reticuloceras superbilingue, Reticuloceras bilingue and Reticuloceras stubblefieldi for this location. But which is which in the images?

From the Great Limestone, Pendleian (Upper Mississippian) of County Durham, UK. One for @Spongy Joe and any other sponge experts out there. There appear to be no sponges (apart from Chaetetes) recorded from this well researched limestone but I've collected over thirty over the past few years. There are several different types, generally fossilised as broken fragments though these can be quite large (several inches across). This one is a curved sheet, like part of a vase or dish, about 10 - 15mm thick. The outer (convex) layer contains a good proportion of spicules showing five (and a few six) rays so could it be a heteractinid of some sort? The preservation is mostly calcite, perhaps original. Scale bar is 1cm long. Vertical section, showing disposition of tangential sections below. (specimen no. Sp. 13) Tangential section, cutting through outer surface on right and bottom (the orange layer, with smaller spicules than the internal ones). Closeups of tangential sections. Several five rayed spicules are visible along the edges (i.e. in the outer layer).

This is from Namurian shale. Specimen is 10cm/4 inches across.The pattern looks like leaf venation but seems too 'advanced' for Namurian leaves. There is abundant plant material of lepidodendron, sigillaria in the area but I haven't seen this before. Any thoughts?