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Showing results for tags 'Carboniferous'.
Found 817 results
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Last weekend I decided to take a short drive to Vermilion County, IL and get outside for a little bit. I haven’t been able to do any fossil hunting since COVID-19 reached our shores, so I had a few iffy sites less than 40 minutes from home in mind as I was driving. The first two proved fruitless, but I decided on a whim to take a new road over a local river in hopes of finding some exposures there. The river was running high with verdant growth all around and dragon and damselflies filling the air. As I looked down from the bridge I saw sandy shore, concrete bridge abutment, and then a small section with some intriguing rocks scattered along the river’s edge. Once I made my way down to river level, I found that the black rocks visible above were pieces of black shale and coal. I was excited! I had been thinking of black shale since collecting some on an ESCONI trip last year and reading @connorp’s posts about black shale finds. This shale was much more fragile and bedded than the Mecca Quarry Shale I found last year, so I was able to split it easily by hand. I was too excited, so I forgot to take any in situ photos (I took the ones above on my way back to the car). Before too long, I spotted the unmistakeable shape of a dermal spine from the iconic black shale chondrichthyan fauna Listracanthus hystrix- a strange shark relative covered in spiny denticles. I spent about 30 minutes searching this small exposure and turned up several more Listracanthus, the inarticulate brachiopods Lingula and Orbiculoidea, fish scales, and some mysterious spine fossils. Unfortunately, almost everything was tiny (less than 1 cm) and I don’t have a macro lens for my phone yet, so photos of most of them will have to wait. Here is everything I kept after trimming the matrix down: I will share some more pics of the best Listracanthus in my next post.
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- illinois
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Hello! I recently went to Grand Ledge, Michigan. This area is part of the Carboniferous, and more specifically the Pennsylvanian period. I found this fossil that appears to be scales. It’s not an imprint either, the scales are elevated. In the surrounding rock there are cordiate fossils and some kind of clam, I found ferns in the area as well. I believe that it was a swamp land way back when these were all alive. An ID on what kind of plant or maybe even fish scales would be awesome! Thank you!
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Yesterday I received a parcel from a member of the forum, containing fish and plant fossils from the Scottish coal measures, as well as a tooth which I found in West Yorkshire (UK) and sent to be prepared. My favourite of the Scottish fossils is a tooth which I am fairly confident is Strepsodus sp. Since little is known about Rhizodont teeth, it’s often very difficult to put a genus name to a particular species. Despite this, when I first saw this tooth the shape immediately made me suspect it is Strepsodus, so I decided to have a closer look at the striations. I was pleased to see that the striations look a very good match to Strepsodus sp in my opinion. I am therefore about 90% sure it is Strepsodus, and it’s the only tooth in my collection that I would call Strepsodus with any confidence. Sorry for the low quality photo, it’s quite small (5mm) and the shiny surface made it difficult to show the detail. Here is the tooth from West Yorkshire, before and after prep. It measures 12mm long, and is the largest tooth I have found in the Yorkshire coal field. It also the best preserved coal measures tooth I have found. This tooth comes from a mussel band, in which fish remains are quite rare, apart from in very thin fish layers which sometimes occur in the band. However, this is not within one of the fish layers. I’m not sure what fish this tooth is from, I suspect an identification would be almost impossible until more information about these fish is discovered and published. It is from the Pennine Lower Coal Measures formation (upper Carboniferous).
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- carboniferous
- teeth
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5 plants I need help with. 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 3 & 5 look to be the same species. Number 4 also appears to have 2 separate plants on it but am not 100% confident. Thanks for the help!
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Got out to one of my favourite Blackhall Limestone sites in the Midland Valley of scotland for the first time in a while last week and made a few finds I was really pleased with. Found my smallest jellyfish so far at 25mm across (I'm told examples as small as 8mm have been found), a well preserved example of a Penniretepora sp. bryozoan for this site (thanks @TqB for the ID! ) and also a couple of teeth that still need some prep. A few months back at the same site I got another nice example of a Poecilodus jonesi posterior tooth plate that I never got round to posting here so here it is too, its 12mm across.
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- blackhall limestone
- jellyfish
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From my collection of St Clair plant material - any ideas? Less than half a centimeter thick, about two inches long.
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So, I found these rocks on an late carboniferous site in Brazil, the rocks are sandstone, rhytmites, diamictite and shale. I searched and on that period, the site were an shallow ocean/swamp after a glaciation period. I found an article that studies megaspores from a really near site fron this one ive been. Ill post pictures of some of my founds, some of them dont really look loke fossils, but they were very curios so i wanted to ID them. I really appreciate all help!
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Fossil hunting in Virginia/West Virginia/North Carolina
the_abyss_blinked posted a topic in Questions & Answers
I hope this is the right place. I am hoping to find some spots in these areas. I'd prefer Carboniferous as opposed to Devonian, or Miocene/Eocene. Would any of you know any spots? Maybe road cuts, or abandoned quarries those sorts of places? I'd be willing to pay for access if need be. If you don't feel comfortable outing it, please PM me. Thank you! -
I found this upper Carboniferous tooth in the Yorkshire coal field a while ago. I am unsure if it is from a fish or an amphibian. It measures 5.5mm long. Any help to identify it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Daniel
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- carboniferous
- fish
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This Pit 11 nodule popped today. I'm getting shrimpy vibes but I'm really not sure what to make of it. Any thoughts?
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- pennsylvanian
- carboniferous
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This is a trip I took last year as we decided to make the trek to Washington DC for our family trip. I would definitely recommend a trip there for the museums alone if anyone has been thinking of going. Even on our non fossil trips, I try to plan a fossil excursion or 2. We got to the site around 11am, and it was quite hot as it is out in the sun. I don't have any pictures of the site itself, but you basically park on the side of the road, and hop over a barrier, and you are right there. Thank you @minnbuckeye for recommendations on parking as safety is always paramount when the family is with me. Thank you to @TNGray for his wonderful webpage once again in helping me find some easily accessible sites for the family. I only got to spend about a half hour at the site as the family was wanting to get moving home, but here's about half the fossils I brought home.
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- ferns
- carboniferous
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Found something I haven't seen before while hunting in Pennsylvanian limestone a couple weeks ago. I feel like this is poorly preserved plant material but there are not many discernible features, even under magnification. Any thoughts?
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Hi Everyone, I found this specimen a while back and have been trying to identify it but have been unsuccessful. Its from a layer of shale within the Winterset Limestone, Kansas City group, Upper Pennsylvanian, Carboniferous. Scale in mm. I flaked it off a bigger piece that had bivalves in it which I'll post below. The depth of the flake is about 1/4th of an inch (6.35mm) thick. The fossil doesn’t carry through to either side of the flake. The piece at the top is the same specimen just what came apart when I cracked it. At the moment my guess is that it might be a bivalve of some sort but I can't find any that look similar. Here are some other bivalve species that were in the same section. The color difference is from me scrubbing it with a brush which removed the gray matrix. Any feedback is much appreciated as I can't find anything close.
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- kansas city
- upper pennsylvanian
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Mystery Carboniferous Plant - just another fern or something else?
cameronsfossilcollection posted a topic in Fossil ID
Found this in some Pennsylvanian aged shale in Ambridge, PA at the well known mahoning exposure. It doesn’t have visible pinnae like the ferns I’ve found in the area, but it could just be a strange preservation. Any ideas - is this just a fern? Thanks! -
UV-B radiation blamed for Devonian-Carboniferous boundary terrestrial extinction
Oxytropidoceras posted a topic in Fossil News
End-Devonian Mass Extinction Caused by Erosion of Ozone Layer, New Study Finds, Sci-News. May 28, 2020 http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/end-devonian-mass-extinction-erosion-ozone-layer-08477.html No asteroids needed: ancient mass extinction tied to ozone loss, warming climate By Paul Voosen Science News, May. 27, 2020 https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/no-asteroids-or-volcanoes-needed-ancient-mass-extinction-tied-ozone-loss-warming The open access paper is: John E. A. Marshall, Jon Lakin, Troth, and Sarah M. Wallace-Johnson, 2020, UV-B radiation was the Devonian-Carboniferous boundary terrestrial extinction kill mechanism. Science Advances 27 May 2020: Vol. 6, no. 22, eaba0768 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aba0768 https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/22/eaba0768 https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/22/eaba0768/tab-pdf Yours, Paul H. -
Rhizodus is probably the most well known Carboniferous fish. I have seen Rhizodus teeth over 20cm in length, which shows the huge size this fish could reach. Fossils of Rhizodus are quite difficult to obtain due to their rarity and because most of them were found a long time ago. I do however have two teeth from Rhizodus. I intend to allow these teeth to be studied by experts if they are of interest to them. The first tooth is a tusk tooth from Newsham, Northumberland, England. It measures 37mm long. The second tooth is from Cowdenbeath, Fife, Scotland. I believe this comes from the Limestone Coal formation, Dora opencast. It measures 42mm.
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Adventures of Arthur the Arthropleura https://museum.wales/blog/2014-11-11/The-Adventures-of-Arthur-the-Arthropleura-/ https://prehistoric-earth-a-natural-history.fandom.com/wiki/Arthropleura Museums Unleashed: Using traditional and social media to reach audiences, build communities, and transform hearts and minds, NatSCA https://natsca.blog/tag/arthur-the-arthropleura/ Mortimer, K., Wood, H. and Gallichan, J., 2016. A departmental face to social media: Lessons learnt from promoting natural history collections at National Museum Cardiff. J. Nat. Sci. Collections, 3, pp.18-28. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/293731548_A_departmental_face_to_social_media_Lessons_learnt_from_promoting_natural_history_collections_at_National_Museum_Cardiff Yours, Paul H.
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- arthropleura
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Bivalves always challenge me. If the ear (is that the right word?) on the left wasn't present, I would have called this Dunbarella sp. But the rounded ear doesn't match any species of Dunbarella I've seen. Maybe another genus, like Aviculopecten? Not sure. From Pennsylvanian black shale in Illinois. Thanks for any help.
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I feel like this is a smattering of disarticulated fish bones, but I'm not positive. The preservation is not amazing so even under magnification I'm not sure if these are bone or not. Found in Pennsylvanian black shale in Illinois. Any thoughts? @RCFossils Various levels of magnification
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After quarantine, the first hunt for carboniferous plants
nala posted a topic in Fossil Hunting Trips
Too much rust on my Estwing ! It was a good time for hunting today -
Picked it up as a White stone, but it shouts fossil, has perfect symmetry.
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Hi all, Here’s an interesting plant find. I discovered it in a locality in Western PA known for producing good plant fossils. I’m thinking seed fern, maybe related to Alethopteris somehow but to be honest I’m not sure what the species is. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance Stratigraphy: Connelsville Sandstone of the Casselman Formation of the Conemaugh Group. Age-Late Pennsylvanian, ~305 MYA
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- pittsburgh
- pennsylvania
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For the last 4 years I have been collecting plant fossils from sites in East Central Illinois. These fossils were all brought to the surface by underground coal mining in the first half of the 20th century. Most of the spoil piles in the area have been graded or flattened out, but a few still remain, standing tall above the flatland. One particular pile is, I believe, the source of most or all of the fossils I find. The shale that makes up the spoil has been fired by the internal heat of the pile, resulting in the hard, reddish material known as "red dog". This shale is then crushed and used as paving material, on trails, parking lots, and construction sites in the area. It's at these secondary locations that I am able to search the material for the impressions of ancient plants and collect them. The shale is pretty smashed up, so complete or large fossils are rare, but the preservation of detail is generally quite good. Geologically, the fossils come from the Energy Shale Member of the late Pennsylvanian Carbondale Formation.
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- ferns
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I picked this up a while ago from the yard of a rockhound who is now deceased, but they could not tell me anything about it at the time anyway... all they could say was it was likely collected somewhere here on Vancouver Island, which would make it either Triassic Parson Bay/Sutton or Quatsino Formation, or Pennsylvanian/Permian Mt Mark or Buttle Lake Fm. I don't think it's likely to be from any of the younger formations. These structures look suspiciously like sponges to me, but I can't say for sure. They've obviously been silicified, which makes ID difficult. Any ideas? I noticed the feature marked with a red circle while looking thru the photos. It might be indicative of ID or maybe I'm just seeing things. I've not bothered to shrink the photos, as I want people to be able to see whatever detail there is on this thing. Hopefully they will load... I'll post one at a time if I have to.
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- carboniferous
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All the local Kmarts went the way of the dinosaur and went extinct last year. I bought a couple display cases for $40 each. I brought it home and just a month ago filled it up with fossils. The wiring was cut from the store in a hurry, so I just left it as is. I ordered a plug and rewired it this morning. The light makes a huge difference.
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- display case
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