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Hello everyone, Recently I was kindly sent some fossils by @connorp from the Waldron Shale in St. Paul Indiana. One of these fossils was a piece of matrix which ended up separating due to some cracks, this revealed an interesting specimen that I am not too sure about the ID of. It is round, with rough surface texture and some fine patterns visible under magnification. To me, this appeared very similar to Lower Devonian Hindia sp. sponges I've found in NY, so I thought maybe it belonged to that genus. Looking into it the only sponge genus I can find from the Waldron is Astylospongia, and the specimens of this genus I've seen online look quite different from this example as although they're also round, but they appear to have different surface patterns and and an indentation on one side which I do not see here. I was wondering does anyone know what this may be? Is it a sponge like Hindia, a different species or preservation of Astylospongia or maybe not a sponge at all? Thank you for looking, and for any help. It is really appreciated. Misha
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This Strange Ancient 'Fossil' May Not Have Been Left by Any Living Thing Carly Cassella, ScienceAlert, Nature, February 25, 2023 The open access paper is: Nolan, M.R., Walker, S.E., Selly, T., and Schiffbauer, J. 2023, Is the middle Cambrian Brooksella a hexactinellid sponge, trace fossil or pseudofossil? Peer J. Yours, Paul H.
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Formation: Bangor Limestone Age: Mississippian Found this location in a remote area of Alabama recently. I Haven't hunted the Bangor in awhile, so I gave it a shot. A fragmentary calyx. Northern Alabama seems to be teeming with these, as I found 8 others in a nearby locality as well. A complete, but squashed roller of a Kaskia? Fenestrella are found commonly articulated with their fans here. This was the best individual I found. My guess is these are Spyroceras? All of my nautiloids come from the Ordovician, so these are unqiue for me. I'm not certain I know what these are. Could be a bryozoan? Bacterial structure? Steinkern? These are sponges I believe, species unknown. Composita brachiopods: Unknown productids: Next are some new brachiopods I have yet to identify. Oh, and here is a brachiopod with an exposed brachidium. Finally here are some blastoids with weird preservational attributes.
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I drive 8 hours with a friend to a location he remembers from his childhood as yielding a lot. Oh boy it did. 100% worth the drive. Lake Huron, among the agates, pyrite, yooperlite, has some extraordinary Devonian fossils. All fossils were collected from the beach of his family’s property except for the fenestelid bryozoan, which was found at a gas station on the way there. please enjoy this collection of gastropods, petoskey stones, various tabulate corals, crinoids, stromatoporoids, bivalves, Brachiopods, tenteculites, horn corals, an unidentified agatized fossil in jasper matrix, and a pudding stone I felt like showing off too. Thanks! I highly recommend the area.
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- great lakes
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- molluca
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- petoskey stone
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- sponges
- stromatoporoid
- tabulate
- tentaculite
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Show us your Devonian Epizoans & Pathological Brachiopods!
Brach3 posted a topic in General Fossil Discussion
Dear all, if Devonian Epizoans (Epibionts) & Pathological Brachiopods (all the periods) are a fascinating group of fossils for you and you want to discuss anything about their paleoecology, please post your photos (specimens) in this thread.- 225 replies
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- aulopora
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- bore traces of predation
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- brachiopods life position
- bryozoa
- cephalopod predation
- coprolites
- cornulites
- crinoidea
- ctenostomata
- cyclostomata
- cystoporata
- damage to brachiopods
- drill holes
- durophagy
- ecological interactions
- eliasopora
- encrusters
- endoskeletobionts
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- epifauna
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- fistuliporoids
- graptolites dendroid
- hederella
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- incertae sedis
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- microconchida
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- predation
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- prestomata
- pseudobryozoans
- repair of shell breakage
- repair scar
- ropaionaria
- rugosa
- rugose coral
- sclerobionts
- sedentaria
- shell breakage
- shell repair
- sphenothallus
- spinocyrtias
- sponges
- stenopora
- trepos
- trepostomata
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Are sponges a major source of Neoproterozoic C30 steranes?
Oxytropidoceras posted a topic in Fossil News
Great virtual talk about using biomarkers to determine the presence of sponges in the Neoproterozoic. What are the major sources of Neoproterozoic C30 steranes? Gordon Love, University of California, Riverside Virtual Seminars in Precambrian Geology, December 2, 2022 In addition, starting at 53:30, Dr. Love presents very specific arguments about why the cholestane biomarker recovered from fossils of White Sea Dickinsonia fossils are Quaternary contaminates and are not in any way associated with them. If so, this renders the arguments about whether the cholestane biomarker indicates Dickinsonia is an animal rather moot. The original Fossil Forum post is: Dickinsonia steroids not unique to animals The original papers are: Bobrovskiy, I., Hope, J.M., Ivantsov, A., Nettersheim, B.J., Hallmann, C. and Brocks, J.J., 2018. Ancient steroids establish the Ediacaran fossil Dickinsonia as one of the earliest animals. Science, 361(6408), pp.1246-1249. and Retallack, G.J., 2022. Damaged Dickinsonia specimens provide clues to Ediacaran vendobiont biology. Plos one, 17(6), p.e0269638. More of Bobrovskiy’s papers More of Rettalack’s papers Yours, Paul H.-
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Hi, i recently received those very nice sponges from @badeend. I asse they're all Hexactinellids. I know identfying sponges even when you have them un grand is a hard thing to do. Any help to try a more precise ID is greatly welcome. Here is the number1, a glass sponges ? Kimmeridgian, Kalberbeg, Netherlands
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Paleozoic Adventures in Kentucky and Tennessee October 2021
Jeffrey P posted a topic in Fossil Hunting Trips
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:- 76 replies
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Y'all please understand, I'm new to this! These all came from the gravel road leading to my house in S. LA. What are they?
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A Day in the Lower Devonian with the New York Paleontological Society
Jeffrey P posted a topic in Fossil Hunting Trips
Yesterday, Tim (Fossildude19) and myself met at our usual meeting spot and with Tim driving and his downloads playing, we headed north to a planned rendezvous with the New York Paleontological Society's outing at Cobleskill Stone Products just outside Schoharie, N.Y. The weather was gorgeous- perfect really, sunny mid-50s. Fall colors were in full swing. We drove through the northern edge of the Catskills, arriving early at our rendezvous, the parking lot at the Cobleskill Stone Company. It was my first time there since 2013. I went on two previous NY Paleontological Society outings to this site, access tightly restricted. I had wanted to return, but every year there always seemed to be a conflict. One year I recall there was a planned Fossil Forum gathering at DSR on the same day. There were many reasons I wanted to return: The quarry had the best exposure of the Kalkberg Formation I've ever encountered. The Kalkberg is Lower Devonian, part of the Helderberg Group. Marine fossils are especially abundant and well preserved. The biodiversity is exceptional. There are many species of brachiopods, plus corals, nautiloids, bryozoans, the sponge, Hindia, and trilobites. Since the quarry is infrequently hunted, many specimens can be found exposed, even weathered clean right out of the limestone. Many of my best Kalkberg fossils are from there. I was excited to be there. It is always a pleasure to be out collecting with Tim. It was his first time at this quarry. Here are a couple pictures of the quarry. Notice the bright fall colors in the background.- 28 replies
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I foud these two stones on a fossil hunting trip some weeks ago. The fossil on the below stone seems to be a gastropod (size about 3 cm), but is the other a sponge? Anyone have an idea? Both are from middle ordovicium, Oslo-field in Norway. Martin
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Alternate title: I found Pennsylvanian fossilized Sesame Wasa Crispbread; is it safe to eat? I have visited the Pennsylvanian Naco Formation east of Payson, Arizona several times this long hot summer and found some interesting sponges. My most interesting find was this 5 cm wide sponge that looked almost exactly like a Wasa Crispbread with sesame seeds on top. I was about to nickname it a Wasa sponge until I found out that it had a genus name: Stioderma. Pennsylvanian Desmoinian Stioderma occur in Texas. Link It is amazing how many fossils I have identified from the Pennsylvanian Naco Formation by reading references from fossils found in Texas and Oklahoma: thanks. link to Collections I found a new 5 cm sponge that sort of looks like a horn coral, but it has spicules. The area contained the usual suspects such as this 165 mm long Wewokella solida Link. and this 50 mm Chaunactis olsoni that the Arizona Museum of Natural History expresses interest in and hopefully will get it.
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Hey everyone. I thought I'd share some of the things I found on my last fossil hunt. So.. Many.. Fossils! One might even say that there were a plethora of fossils. If I could, I would've taken them all with me, but sadly my backpack can only carry so many rocks. I was literally examining each rock I had, trying to decide which to carry back and which to leave behind and how many I could fit in my pants pockets before they started to fall down. Eventually I decided to just stop looking for fossils and hike back to the jeep. This lasted all of 3 seconds before I found another a beautiful byrozoan and was trying to figure out how to fit it in my pack. The byrozoan and the sponge below are my favorites since i don't see many of them and the brachipod in the matrix just looks cool. lol Its fascinating to look at these fossils and think about how Arizona used to be completely underwater long, long ago.
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I visited my favorite spot in the Early Kimmeridgian the other day and along with the usual ammonites, I came up with something quite interesting. It's a block out of the sponge reef facies with a Laevaptychus obliquus Aptychus as the center piece along with a Streblites tenuilobatus ammonite and a couple of smaller ones, a rhychonelloid brachiopod and even a little echinoid spine all attached to pieces of sponges. Everything is strongly calcified, so it's quite stable. I just had to abrade away the soft clay matrix and there they were.
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From the album: Cretaceous
Cliona cretacica Boring Sponges Upper Cretaceous Wenonah Formation Mattawan Group Big Brook Marlboro, N.J.- 1 comment
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From the album: Lower Devonian Helderberg Group in Eastern NY
Hindia sphaeroidalis from the new Scotland formation -
Hello, I have been finding all sorts of neat rocks and marine fossils in the desert outside of Yuma, Arizona where the Colorado river had once flowed into a large ocean. Are these fossilized coral or sponges? I would appreciate an ID on the specimens, or speculations as to what they are? Thank you.
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A few days ago I found a very productive fossil site in the Pennsylvanian Naco Formation in central Arizona. I went up to look at an interesting new track site in the Permian Coconino Sandstone NE of Payson that was found by a friend and is being studied by the prolific Spencer Lucas from New Mexico. Link The Naco Formation site that I just found, has the most diversity of sponges of any Naco site to date. It also has lots of large brachiopods. Photo 1 shows a 3.4881 × 10-18 light years (3.3 cm) long Composita subtilita brachiopod, the largest that I have seen. Photo 2: impression of exterior of a brachial brachiopod valve with spines now shown as holes (probably Exhinaria semipunctata). Shell about 5 cm wide. Photo 3: there were lots of Antiquatonia portlockiana brachiopods. This one is 5 cm across. Photo 4: impression of the exterior of a 3 cm brachiopod brachial valve. Note molds of spines below. Photo 5: this is the longest horn coral that I have ever seen from the Naco. It is 18 cm long. I am guessing that it is a Caninia sp. Photo 6: this is the largest “spiky ball sponge” that I ever have seen from the Naco. 1.7cm across. I only find them as singles in the rock or eroded out pieces that occur by the dozens in a small area. Literature hints that they might be sponges spicules. I am beginning to wonder if they are not an entire sponge or another creature altogether. I have yet to see a spicule that has crosspieces or ridges close to the center of the ball where the spikes attach. Photo 7: here is the pièce de résistance, a giant 10 cm Wewokella sponge that only a friend has found at another site and originally identified his as a coral. I said that his was a sponge. Wewokella have spicules with an average of 3 or 4 points unlike the Regispongia of similar appearance. Link Detail of above sponge. Note spicule shape. Photo 8: a 7 cm “dot sponge” of unknown affinity. They are somewhat common in the Naco. Photo 9: a small 1.5 cm disk shaped sponge with straight radiating spines. It might be a Belemnospongia. Photo 10: there are lots of flat chert masses that contain lots of straight sponges spines, probably from a single collapsed unidentified sponge.
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Hi. I visited Wren's Nest, Dudley, UK last summer. Just wonder if the fossils shown in the photos were corals or sponges. They were not uncommon but both were possibly damaged by diggers who attempted to excavate them. My apology the subject was a bit out of focus. Thanks. KS
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I've just added two sponges to my collection which I found recently in the Kimmeridgian Lochen Formation in the upper Danube Valley near Beuron. The first is the appropriately named Melonella radiata and the second is a Trochobolus texatus.
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Fossils on Wheels received another generous donation to our education programs this week. TFF member @Herb sent us a box of super cool invertebrates. He sent us a diversity of fossils from the Southern US that cover a wide range of eras. These fossils will be given to students in fossil starter kits and used in hands-on activities. Herb's donation is also awesome because this pushes me to learning a lot more about invertebrate fossils. One of the best parts of teaching kids about natural history through fossil exploration is that I get to learn a lot. Good teachers learn and challenge themselves so they can challenge their students. I do not have a lot of knowledge about these types of animals but I am so excited to start learning. Among the fossils we received were- Mississippian Corals and Brachiopods from Kentucky, Crinoid stems and Silurian sponges from Tennessee, Cretaceous Gastropods from Texas, and Eocene Bivalves from Alabama. Thank you Herb for a generous donation that will get put to good use
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I found these fossils on Jebel Hafeet, Al Ain, UAE. The second rock looks like there is a criniod in it, but is more possibly a type of sponge. The first rock has quite a few things in it, including some type of coral. I would like to know what these really are.