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"It seems likely that trilobites were preceded by soft-bodied ancestors: at several localities, sedimentary rocks with trace fossils of trilobite activity underlie the oldest rocks with trilobite body fossils." From http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/arthropoda/trilobita/trilobitafr.html Hello all, I'm looking for papers that support or dispute the above standard line about trilobite ancestors likely having soft bodies. I searched the forum but tags such as "soft body" produces papers that refer to the soft bits of hard bodied trilobites; not true soft bodied trilobites. One or two papers, if you know of any, would be sufficient to get me on my way. Also, if anyone has thoughts about this subject, I would love to hear them. It is bothersome (at least to me) that these creatures seem to have no connection to the Proterozoic.

Hello everyone, I am in desperate need of help with a huge debate I have been having with a friend over fossils preserved in ironstone concretions. From some of what I had read to some advice from other members I it possible to find vertebrate bone among shells and other mollusks preserved in an ironstone concretion. Whether it leaves a trace of the organism, morphs the organic material into the structure of the iron concretion through the decomposition with preserving, or whatever else it may be it seems to be possible. So recently I have hunted a place known to have recorded marine cretaceous shell and other mollusk found in ironstone concretion as well as cretaceous plants in shale, it seems like not to vast of enough study has been done there only from what I know, but since no vertebrate material had yet been discovered there though there can maybe be the possibility. I found these two particularly distinct pieces in iron concretions that exactly mimic the scute structure of soft shell turtle and croc in my opinion, I know how iron concretions are famous for leaving psuedofossils and such but these two pieces look way to exact and since its possible for shells and mollusks to preserve why not scutes? So I am here looking to end this debate, I'm looking for your opinion, can these be labeled as fossils, traces, etc? Or are these among some of the world's best iron concretions and nothing more. Your input especially if you are very experience in this subject would be tremendously appreciated.

Here's a few things I've learned about the best marine fossil sites. All the right ingredients need to come together in one spot for a great fossil site to come together. But I know there's much more than what I've listed below. So I was hoping other people could add to my list and correct anything they see that's amiss. I figure if your going to search for fossils, you might as well go with the best ideas in hand. All the right ingredients typically found at a good Marine Fossil site: * High elevation limestone shale cliffs, high elevation hill country or areas around ancient seabeds. *Marine rocks in the area like limestone, basalt, dolomite , loess, silica. *Excessive iron presence, magnesium, sulfur and copper carbon ore in the area is ideal. *Presence of certain minerals like bertheirine and calcium carbonates. *Evidence of trace fossils on the surface so you don't waste time digging in the wrong spot. * Mud stone, clay, coral formations, or coral rocks. * Rocks with flow lines, water marks, algae or microorganism markings. *Evidence of oxidation or oxidized rocks. Ross P. Anderson, Nicholas J. Tosca, Robert R. Gaines, Nicolás Mongiardino Koch, Derek E.G. Briggs. A mineralogical signature for Burgess Shale–type fossilization. Geology, 2018; DOI: 10.1130/G39941.1

I don't throw around the word "best" casually, but I think it's safe to say that my recent trip was one of the best in all my years collecting, if not the best. I spent the better part of five or six hours collecting at numerous different sites across western Maryland ranging in age from the lower Devonian to the lower Mississippian, so this is part one of my posts (for simplicity's sake I may include photos of most of my other finds from these sites even if I didn't collect them last go around). The trip started off okay. I visited a couple of my oldest sites that are some small roadside exposures of the Oriskany Sandstone and Mahantango Formation. These sites produced decent material in the past, but over the repeated years of collecting I seem to have worn them out as this time all I found were some brachiopods (including a decent Mucrospirifer sp. from the Mahantango site). I'll talk more about these finds later, but afterwards I found time to visit a new site in the Brallier Formation. By this point it had started to thunder, and while driving to the site the rain started to come in and fog filled up the valley. I thought it was the end of my trip, but as I got to the site it was pretty much dry. My best guess is that I was simply hearing a storm from way off in the distance. The site I visited, as I recently learned, might actually expose two different formations: the Brallier Formation and the Foreknobs Formation. The difficulty in discerning between the various upper Devonian formations in Maryland is multifold. First off, the MGS doesn't differentiate the Harrell, Brallier, and Scherr Formations, even on their most recent geologic maps. Second of all the literature around these deposits is scant and very dated. Most still use the (now) incorrect Woodmont and Chemung Formations, which further exacerbates problems as the Woodmont Formation consisted of the current Brallier and Scherr Formations, making it difficult for an amateur like me to really tell just which fossils occur in either formation. On top of this the contact between the Harrell, Brallier, Scherr, and Foreknobs is mostly gradational, so the differentiating layers lithologically is next to impossible as the beds gradually blend into one another. Generally speaking the Harrell is a dark shale with a fossiliferous limestone (the Tully Limestone) demarcating it's base, the Brallier is mostly dark, fissile shale with interbeds of siltstone, the Scherr is mostly lighter colored shale and siltstone with some sandstone beds, and the Foreknobs is a mixture of gray shales, red shales, conglomerate, sandstone, and siltstone. A guide fossil for the Brallier is the brittle star trace fossil Pteridichnites biseriatus, which was the fossil I originally set out to collect and found in the darker shale. Generally speaking the brachiopod genus Cyrtospirifer sp. in particular C. disjunctus is a guide fossil for the Foreknobs, but I believe this genus also occurs in the Brallier Formation. I found both fossils at this site, the brittle star in the dark shale and the brachiopod in a reddish siltstone, and considering the transition in rock types (one end of the site was just dark, fissile shale and the other had significant amounts of conglomerate and siltstone with shell beds) I think it's likely that the upper end of the cut was in the basal Foreknobs Formation and the lower end was in the upper layers of the Brallier Formation. As such, all of my trace fossils are from the Brallier and almost all of my other fossils are from the Foreknobs. The Brallier Formation is a late Devonian turbidite unit that was deposited in fairly deep water as the Acadian Mountains eroded. It is mostly unfossiliferous, but does have the occasional pelycopod, gastropod, and trace fossil (these being the most common). Ammonoids are also reported from the Brallier. Like I said earlier I originally came trying to find the brittle star trace fossil Pteridichnites but I ended up finding some other very interesting trace fossils. I picked up two of them because I had seen images of similar looking things from the Pennsylvanian of Alabama which I believe @Rockin' Ric labeled as resting traces from horseshoe crabs. These are late Devonian, deep water marine in origin, not terrestrial/freshwater from the Pennsylvanian, so I don't really know what they could be. Perhaps from some other arthropod? Anyways I also found some brittle star traces, including a group of what look to be four or five Pteridichnites biseriatus oriented in life position as if it were an imprint of the brittle star body. Image 1: Pteridichnites biseriatus Image 2: A group of four poorly preserved P. biseriatus Image 3: Unknown arthropod (?) trace fossil Image 4: Unknown arthropod (?) trace fossil If any of you guys know what the last two fossils are, please feel free to let me know.

Hey all, I found this slab of rock in a Linn County, IA creek this spring and I'm not sure how these patterns might have formed. Are they trace fossils from something? Did they form for normal geological processes? It's hard to pin down age of rocks in a creek like this, but most of our exposures are Devonian or Silurian. Thanks!

These Are the Oldest Known Footprints on the Planet By George Dvorsky, Gizmodo, June 7, 2018 https://gizmodo.com/these-are-the-oldest-known-footprints-on-the-planet-1826648702 When did animals leave their first footprint on Earth? Chinese Academy of Sciences, June 6, 2018, Press Release https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-06/caos-wda060518.php The paper is: Zhe Chen, Xiang Chen, Chuanming Zhou, Xunlai Yuan, and Shuhai Xiao, 2018, Late Ediacaran trackways produced by bilaterian animals with paired appendages Science Advances 06 Jun 2018: Vol. 4, no. 6, eaao6691 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aao6691 http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/6/eaao6691 Yours, Paul H.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180312091407.htm

New depth limit for deep-sea marine burrows University of Leeds, January 10, 2018 https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180110080549.htm “Scientists have found fossil evidence of deep-sea marine life burrowing up to eight meters below the seabed -- four times the previously observed depth for modern deep-sea life.” Ancient outcrops give new depth limit for deep-sea burrows http://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/4165/ancient_outcrops_give_new_depth_limit_for_deep-sea_burrows The paper is: S. L. Cobain, D. M. Hodgson, J. Peakall, P. B. Wignall, M. R. D. Cobain. A new macrofaunal limit in the deep biosphere revealed by extreme burrow depths in ancient sediments. Scientific Reports, 2018; 8 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-18481-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-18481-w Yours, Paul H.

I can imagine a Hollywood block-buster telling a story of a few brave TFF members looking for fossils on Mars https://www.slashgear.com/curiosity-finds-strange-tiny-mars-feature-trace-fossils-possible-05513891/

Well it's been a while since I've last been on (over two months), and I know how much you all have been missing me , so I decided to finally get around to photographing some of the finds I've made over the summer. I've talked a bit earlier this year about collecting in the Frederick Limestone and other upper Cambrian-lower Ordovician units, but these finds are from rocks far, far older than those, nearly 100 million years older! These fossils are among some of the oldest in Maryland, and in the Mid-Atlantic region, which was part of the reason I collected them in the first place (because, let's be honest, most aren't that appealing). If you find these things interesting, the Araby was originally mapped as the Antietam Sandstone until about 1940ish when it became a separate geologic formation due to the strong difference in rock-type most common in either (the Antietam is mostly a quartz-sandstone, the Araby mostly a sandy and muddy shale and siltstone). When the time for the split came, the new name Araby was given to the formation that occupied a band roughly stretching from the Potomac River to the south north in a rough question mark shape to Pennsylvania as the type locality was situated near Araby Church (an interesting bit. A geologic formation from the Cambrian explosion named after a church!). Nowadays the church is gone as far as I know, but the area still bears the name with the apply named Araby Church Road. Going back further, in July of 1864, the Araby Formation would play a major role in the Battle of Monocacy. As Confederate forces under Jubal Early's command were marching east along the B&O RR, they were stopped in the vicinity of Frederick by scattered forces under the command of Union General Lew Wallace. During the day long battle (fought July 9), Wallace's outnumbered force of 5,000 men used the hills and small ridges to their east as a last line to stem the Confederate tide, strength roughly 15,000. This ridge, of course, was made up of the resistant Araby Formation, whose clastics didn't erode through time as quickly as the carbonates of the Frederick Limestone. Unfortunately for Wallace and the Union, the Confederates were able to outflank their positions, and forced them to retreat east past Urbana. Although it was a Confederate victory (the northernmost of the war), the battle delayed Early's advance for a crucial 24 hours, allowing reinforcements from the Union 6th Corps near Petersburg to arrive in Washington DC in time to stop the Confederate attacks on July 11-12 at Fort Stevens. Interesting to see how geology plays a role in how battles (and history!) are fought. I collected twice this summer, once in the early part and another time in September, from a roadcut near Frederick. This cut exposes the early Cambrian Araby Formation, which is nearly 550-530 million years old. The Araby is a nearshore clastic unit, likely deposited in a surf/beach zone on the elevated Piedmont block (a fancy term for a higher lying seabed). As such, it roughly correlates to the Antietam Sandstone further west, as well as, more roughly, the Kinzers Formation in Pennsylvania in the upper sections. Geologically speaking, the Araby is divided into coarser, almost buff siltstone and sandstone units and black, slaty-shale and siltstone (this includes the former Cash Smith Shale, which was found out to be in the middle of the Araby upon later work) ones. The darker, shale layers likely were deposited during times of deeper water, as there exists a degree of faunal differences between the two to suggest such (Olenellus thompsoni has been recorded from the black layers, but I never found any). Later, during the Taconic and Acadian Orogenies, the Araby Formation was slightly metamorphosed as were most other Piedmont and Blue Ridge units, though some parts escaped mostly untouched. These, of course, have the best fossils. Boring rock stuff out of the way, the Araby and the Antietam were formed at a special time in Earth's history called the Cambrian Explosion, which was a period when life underwent a rapid series of diversifications. Luckily we didn't miss out much here! Many beds of the Araby are filled with burrows and other traces of ancient wormlike creatures, as well as rarer edioasteroids, trilobites, and other creatures. Unfortunately little work has been done on the Cambrian units of Maryland, and less still on the Araby, so I haven't found any list of actual names for any species. As such, I'll use names from the Antietam Sandstone, as the two are time, stratigraphically, and lithologically equivalent. By far the most common fossils were the worm burrows, Skolithos linearis. These are rounded, somewhat tube shaped objects in their usual form, though they can sometimes occur as cross sections as you'll soon see. On top of this, they're also sometimes preserved in iron minerals, as is common with many other fossils. From what I've gathered, these "tubes" are interpreted to be the resting places of worms, likely annelids. Now, I'm not claiming to know 100% what some of these are so if any of you may have a better ID please let me know. First up are the Skolithos linearis. The first image is of a fairly typical "tube" shaped structure. The second image shows a cross section cut-away of a "tube", partially mineralized in what is likely iron (iii) oxide. The third image is of a large, albeit poorly preserved, complex of "tubes". The general way to tell where they are is by looking for the dark contours of them, and tracing them that way.

Half-a-billion-year-old fossils shed light animal evolution on earth, University of Manchester, September 11, 2017 http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/half-a-billion-year-old-fossils-shed-new-light-on-animal-evolution/ https://phys.org/news/2017-09-half-a-billion-year-old-fossils-animal-evolution-earth.html https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170911122628.htm Tha paper is: Parry, L. A., P. C. Boggiani, D. J. Condon, and others, 2017, Ichnological evidence for meiofaunal bilaterians from the terminal Ediacaran and earliest Cambrian of Brazil Nature Ecology & Evolution. doi:10.1038/s41559-017-0301-9 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319109419_Ichnological_evidence_for_meiofaunal_bilaterians_from_the_terminal_Ediacaran_and_earliest_Cambrian_of_Brazil https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0301-9 Lidya G. Tarhan, 2017, Meiofauna mute the Cambrian Explosion News and Views, Nature Ecology & Evolution https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0324-2 Yours, Paul H.

(Note: this was originally posted under fossil trips) Hey there! I'm sorry its been so long since I've posted on here but suffice it to say I need your help. I'm planning a six to seven day fossil hunting trip in Pennsylvania (sometime in mid august) and I need your help verifying that the sites I've picked to visit from Robert Beards guide Rock Hounding Pennsylvania are still accessible to collecting as well as coverable given my time frame. The places I'm looking at hunting are sites 27. Beltzville State Park (Outcrops on shoreline), 28. Lehighton, Lehigh Canal (Former borrow pit and outcrop),30. Deer Lake (Borrow Pit), 33. Suedberg (Outcrop in former borrow pit), 35. Centralia (Former strip mine outcrop), 38. Rockville (Former quarry), 48. Walker Lake (Hillside and unpaved road), 51. PPL Montour Preserve (Hillside, Former borrow pit), 57. Uniontown (Former quarry). Any insights as to whether or not theses sites are still accessible to collecting, weather our not you believe covering all these sites within 6 to 7 days is possible, and any other tips and tidbits of information on the sites, and or planning a large trip like this etc, would be greatly appreciated! When I go I'm planning to take notes and pictures and then, when i get back, write a few essays illustrated with pics that I will post on here! Thank you in advance, and thank you to Fossil-Hound for directing me on were to properly post this! Glenn aka Fossil123

Hey there! I'm sorry its been so long since I've posted on here but suffice it to say I need your help. I'm planning a six to seven day fossil hunting trip in Pennsylvania (sometime in mid august) and I need your help verifying that the sites I've picked to visit from Robert Beards guide Rock Hounding Pennsylvania are still accessible to collecting as well as coverable given my time frame. The places I'm looking at hunting are sites 27. Beltzville State Park (Outcrops on shoreline), 28. Lehighton, Lehigh Canal (Former borrow pit and outcrop),30. Deer Lake (Borrow Pit), 33. Suedberg (Outcrop in former borrow pit), 35. Centralia (Former strip mine outcrop), 38. Rockville (Former quarry), 48. Walker Lake (Hillside and unpaved road), 51. PPL Montour Preserve (Hillside, Former borrow pit), 57. Uniontown (Former quarry). Any insights as to whether or not theses sites are still accessible to collecting, weather our not you believe covering all these sites within 6 to 7 days is possible, and any other tips and tidbits of information on the sites, and or planning a large trip like this etc, would be greatly appreciated! When I go I'm planning to take notes and pictures and then, when i get back, write a few essays illustrated with pics that I will post on here! Thank you in advance, Glenn aka Fossil123

Hi everyone! So I've recently gotten into the Early Cretaceous coastal environment of what was the extended Gulf of Mexico in what's now Texas after finding out about the numerous dinosaur trackways in my area of the state. I've been combing various databases, and I've already visited the trackway up at the South San Gabriel River twice (A very beautiful group of tracks I might add). This morning, I came across something that surprised me. On the database site https://paleobiodb.org/#/ ( a very useful and interesting site that shows various fossil finds on a map), I found that there were supposedly tracks from some sort of theropod (probably the large sort found around a lot of Texas that have been attributed to Acrocanthosaurus atokensis if I was to put my money on one) were found as close to home as Jonestown. Would anyone happen to know any more about this set of tracks? Unfortunately, there is nothing about exact location on the site like GPs coordinates, so all I have to go off of is the specimen number it provides and a name "TMM 43007, Sandy Creek". Thanks for any help anyone can provide!

Pueblo Community College students make 'significant' geological discovery. Fossils could reshape the way we look at Cañon City's history By Sara Knuth, The Daily Record, 01/06/2017 http://www.canoncitydailyrecord.com/news/education/ci_30708697/students-make-significant-geological-discovery Yours Paul H.

My kids found some fossils near Roanoke, VA - It looks like they are brachiopods and trace fossils from outcrops ranging from the Ordovician to the Mississippian. Can these be more specifically identified besides generic "brachiopods"? Thanks!

Is this a fossil bug? What age? Look underneath the right corner of the bug and you will see a Hillichnus lobosensis which is thought to be a feeding trace of possibly a clam in the muddy sediments. Someone also suggested that it might be a sea cucumber feeding trace. A variety of stunning trace fossils are found in the Paleocene Carmelo Formation in Point Lobos State Park near Carmel California. The geology is great too. Back to identifying the age of the bug, this nearby outcrop looks like a Lucky Charms leprechaun holding a bunch of flowers. Look over to the left and you will see the answer: 70. The VW Bug is vint(age) 1970. Let's see if Woody Allen can start it and get it to run. Look at a larger view of the leprechaun and you will see a line of circular trace fossils that might be part of Hillichnus lobosensis. . Here is another interesting outcrop that looks like a giant foot with a missing toenail. This one looks like the aftermath of a strike of small meteorites . Continued in next post....

Almost there! Over 270 pages of full color fossils from the Pennsylvanian of North Texas The long-awaited sequel to the Pennsylvanian Fossils of North Texas (2003) Available Q4 2015 in hardcopy, digital and e-reader formats.

Found these Ichno Fossils approximately 2 months ago, anyone care to take a stab at what organism could of made these tracks? I'm still learning about Ichno Fossils. From the Parkwood Formation, Alabama USA. The fourth picture is a Selenichnites?

Some recent Ichno fossil finds from the Parkwood Formation, Alabama USA.

I just learned that trace fossils are not actual organisms but tracks, burrows, feces, or any other "trace" that tells paleontologists about the behavior of the animals. I was wondering how they figure out how old the fossils are? If imprints are made on surfaces that existed when the animal was living, doesn't that mean that finding the age of the surfaces themselves won't help in determining the age of the fossil?

Dear all, It was difficult, very difficult to wait with posting, since I am very, very excited about this fossil find. However, I also wanted the Dutch magazine version to come out first. Well, it finally did this Tuesday, so here is some info in English, along with a couple of the figures. During a visit to the Piesberg near Osnabrück (Germany) in 2010, I found a stem fragment of Calamites decorated with strange, elongate-oval structures [Fig. 1]. While those features were unusual and quite remarkable, it proved difficult to find information about them and the fossil consequently went into my collection as unidentified. Last January, however, I stumbled upon a research paper that could shed light on the matter. The elongate-oval structures turn out to be one of the oldest-known examples of endophytic oviposition, i.e. egg-laying inside plant tissue, by insects. Fig. 1. The fossil specimen is atypical in several respects [Fig. 2]. The stem fragment doesn’t show the longitudinal ribs one usually sees on the internodes of Calamites. This is because we are looking at a preservation of the epidermis (outer layer of the stem), not at a cast of the central pith, which are more commonly found. Fossils of the epidermis (sometimes referred to as Calamophyllites) typically have internodes with a smooth surface (though it may be lightly striated or wrinkled), leaving few diagnostic features. Nonetheless, due to the presence of a characteristic nodal line with large, circular branch-scars [Fig. 2, shown on schematic in green], the fossil fragment can be identified as Calamites (subgenus Calamitina) with reasonable confidence. Below the nodal line with branch-scars, about eight elongate-oval structures can be observed [Fig. 1]. They are all orientated roughly parallel to the axis of the calamite stem and vary in length from 6 to 16 mm. A foreign nature with respect to the plant tissue is suggested by the gümbelite film in which the epidermis is preserved (gümbelite is a hydromuscovite and responsible for the well-known silver-grey colour of the fossils from the Piesberg). Note how this thin film of mineralization does not extend across several of the elongate-oval structures, which may indicate that the plant tissue there is either missing or damaged. Their exact origin, however, remained a mystery to me. Until recently. Fig. 2. While looking for information on some Carboniferous localities in France, I happened upon the research article ‘Earliest Evidence of Insect Endophytic Oviposition’ by Olivier Béthoux et al. (2004). The paper describes insect egg-laying structures, called oviposition-scars, found on two stem fragments of Calamites cistii from the Upper Carboniferous (Stephanian B/C) of Graissessac, Southern France. These scars are elongate-oval structures, orientated parallel to the axis of the stem, occurring on a preservation of calamite epidermis [see their Figures 1 and 2]. Careful preparation of three of these scars yielded small spherical cavities, which the researchers interpreted as imprints of the eggs themselves [see their Figure 2b]. The oviposition-scars from Graissessac vary in length from 5 to 38 mm and are surrounded by a thin film of organic material [see their Figure 2c]. Given the strong resemblance with the Piesberg-material, it didn’t take long to make the link with the mystery markings I found years earlier. Now, after confirmation by email from Olivier Béthoux and in person from Han van Konijnenburg-van Cittert, I can with reasonable certainty say that some sort of Carboniferous insect has laid its eggs in the calamite stem I found in the Piesberg quarry. This type of trace fossils is quite rare, so I am very happy I brought this one home. As a nice bonus this specimen comes from the Westphalian D, and is thus somewhat older (about 4 million years) than the published material from Graissessac (Stephanian BC), which is still cited as the oldest occurrence in recent literature. So you can really say this specimen from the Piesberg is one of the oldest examples around! Hope this was as fun and informative as this fossil has been for me, Tim

Hi everyone ! Just discovered this forum and thought I should give it a go regarding identifying some trace fossils. I am currently working with the sedimentology of the Upper Triassic on Svalbard and in the Norwegian Barents Sea. Several trace fossils has been observed in the field and it would of course help a lot to identify them when it comes to the sedimentological interpretation. So, feel free to comment. - Picture 1 shows a vertical 'tube' burrow in a heterolithic setting (mud + sand). The preliminary interpretation is that it was deposited in the offshore-transition zone. Could also have been in a shallower pro-delta environment. Could it be Skolithos, or is it to 'wiggly' and thick? - Picture 2 shows a similar trace fossil (same facies as described above). - Picture 3 also shows one or two vertical burrows (same facies as described above). - Picture 4 shows some apparently vertical traces (same facies as described above). - Picture 5 shows a vertical trace found in a flaser heterolithic setting (90% sand + 10% mud). As you can see, it cuts through the layers and bends them a bit downwards. Preliminary interpretation is a tidal sand flat. - Picture 6 and 7 shows some thick horizontal burrows. Found in a 1 m thick sandstone with hummocky cross stratification and wave ripple cross lamination. Preliminary interpretation is a lower shoreface setting. Could it be Rhizocorallium? Cheers!

Kim, J., Lockley, M. 2013. Review of dinosaur tail traces. Ichnos. 20, 3: 129-141 Brian Switek has a nice discussion on the topic over at Phenomena as well. Enjoy!