Hi everyone, I am hoping to be able to grab someone's attention with a couple of questions. I am a fairly new fossil hunter, (2 years now) and try to identify the fossils I find by comparing them to other images through the forum, or from some of the internet images, such as from the Florida Museum of Paleontology. Sometimes I am successful, often I find two or three differently named fossils that look alike, so my next step to to see where they come from and if my were from the same geologic layer or time. From my latest trip I found wonderful scallops and find myself with a few questions which I am hoping someone will be kind enough to answer.
1. When the ears of a scallop or bivalve are unequal, is the longer one always to the left when looking at the shell surface, and is that always the bottom half?
2. Is there an easy visual way to tell a pecten from a chlamys? or does it have to do with interior structure?
3. Can the differences between a Carolinapecten, a Chesapeakepecten, a Christinapecten be easily discerned?
4. What is up with those unusually named fossils, in my case I am wondering about the Dimarzipecten crocus?
Thanks to you bivalve and scallop experts out there for aiding me. Rod