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Showing results for tags 'sacramento mountains'.
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The Pennsylvanian System in the Sacramento Mountains, New Mexico - New, Online Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology
Oxytropidoceras posted a topic in Fossil Literature
Lucas, S.G., DiMichele, W.A., Krainer, K., Barrick, J. E., Vachard, D., Donovan, M.P., Looy, C., Kerp, H., and Chaney, D.S. 2021, The Pennsylvanian System in the Sacramento Mountains, New Mexico, USA Stratigraphy, Petrography, Depositional Systems, Paleontology, Biostratigraphy, and Geologic History. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology. no. 104. Smithsonian Press, ISBN: 1943-6688, 215 pp. Researchgate - PDF file Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology Kues, B.S., 2001. The Pennsylvanian System in New Mexi- 2 replies
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- paleobiology
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It's been a long time since I've written a trip report. Not that I wasn't hiking, I was hiking like mad and finding stuff. Just didn't get around to documenting in the latter part of 2020. Too much craziness. A couple of days ago, I went in search of an extremely elusive shale formation, that contains some of the loveliest ferns I have seen. My records show I specifically planned 13 hikes last year trying to find another exposure. That was over 100 miles of fruitless searching. Zero. Zilch. Well, two days ago I found another small exposure. Scenic photos of the journey
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Walking in the hills and chanced upon an exposure of early Devonian here (at least I think it is). About 3 feet above the rock slab is a 2 foot thick formation bearing either trace fossils or nodules. They seem more like mineralized nodules to me. For some reason, yesterday, perhaps due to intense morning light angle on the rock surface, I could just not get a good focus. Note the markings in the brownish trace or nodule. Nothing continuously longer than 4" found. Most exposures either broken or seeming to recede into the formation.
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I found this a couple of years ago with no resolution or thoughts on what it might be. It is astoundingly close to circular. 6 feet (1.83 meters) in diameter. Dark brown in color but with color variations. Unfortunately, I did not get any close-ups of the orb itself. It seemed fairly indeterminate as to any pattern such as corals might make. The formation it is in is full of crinoids. The brown orb seems to have a radial pattern. Again too dark to get a decent shot while I was there. I am sort of thinking this may be some sort of reef material? Giant stromat
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- stromatoporoid
- coral
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I was out exploring a very narrow area adjacent to an exposed upper Mississipian formation here. About 100 yards uphill and perhaps 100 ft elevation gain above that Mississippian formation I was hoping to find permineralized material. For perhaps close to 2 hours I was only finding things like this calamite impression and this either highly hematite rich remnant or possibly burnt material I then managed to find a small area that wasn't heavily overgrown with vegetation and found some permineralized material + some unknowns. This is a piec
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- sacramento mountains
- permineralized material
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Subject is a bit off topic, but while out exploring a local canyon for Ordovician fossils, I chanced upon this strange exfoliating section in a formation known as the Valmont. Would anyone happen to have knowledge on the processes behind this? The area was not conducive for finding fossils. This is 'as viewed' from the side. It is not taken from above. The bed is in a normal horizontal orientation but exposed in a staircase cleft. Sedimentary rock formation Found in the orange box in this photo
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- ordovician
- valmont formation
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Trying to find alternative ways into a remote spot that I call "Bucket of Crinoids". I could conservatively guess billions of bits of crinoids stems but never any calyxes for some mysterious reason. Until today. Maybe. Although this is tiny and split by geologic forces it appears to be a crinoid cup view of a small calyx. As I've never actually found a cup before I would appreciate some guiding thoughts. Diameter would be 15mm maximum.
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- new mexico
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Every now and then I find something odd on the ground in the backcountry. Do not feel this is a fossil. At first glance I thought this was just some siliceous ooze with intricate folds. At second glance I noted the broken surfaces were not conchoidal as one would expect with silicate materials. It almost appears like extremely fine-grained basalt on the broken ends Specimen is 1.5" (38mm) long and 1.25" (32mm) wide. Thickness is 3/8" (8-9mm) I'll call this the top view. Primarily very dark black Bottom view has a decided reddish cast
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Wandering about I found some slivers of porcelain like permineralized material floating on the surface in a small dry wash. Exposed and opened a small trench of very broken up pieces of a Lycopsid. I'm going to very tentatively guess Sigillaria due to presence of crenulations on the remaining margin of the material. Covered the pocket back up after taking a few photos. The overall pocket length was at 3 feet when I quit. Specimen increasing in size and going deeper into the hill than my little digging knife could handle. Nearby plant roots had entered the specimen and
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- lycopsid
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At first sight out in the back country I thought I had stumbled on some calamite sections. After cleaning up some specimens at home, I am now leaning more toward some other Lycopsid. Perhaps Sigillaria? @paleoflor More photos to follow
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I'm piling back in late from a fossil hunt and wanted to get this online. Found in a lower Pennsylvanian formation locally. Typically find cordaites and ferns in this formation. Today, this odd split pair caught my attention. For size reference the small calamite next to the split pair is a little over 5 cm long and 2 cm wide. Although not a great field shot I'm posting it up now in case someone can point me in a solid research direction. Part of me thinks cordaite but the unusual branching features on one side only are quite odd to me. Perhaps some sort of
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This isn't the best field shot and I'm not sure how much I can clean up the specimens I brought home as they appear to be glauconite encrusted. My thought when seeing these was Syringopora. They are both somewhat dome shaped. The larger one is about 6" (16cm) in diameter and half of the bottom is exposed and looks like the top. Some of the indents have tiny crinoid segments captured in them.
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New Mexico - Sacramento Mountains; Mississippian Lake Valley Formation
Kato posted a topic in Fossil Hunting Trips
Mother Nature graced us locally with another temperate day so I had time to squeeze in a long exploration into some hidden canyons that comprise a large subset of the local Mississippian formation known as 'Lake Valley' To get to the canyons of interest I walked through Silurian-Devonian exposures but I did not stop to explore for anything. Here was my first view toward the hidden Lake Valley Formation canyons. You can see deformation from the mud mounding. More to follow.- 17 replies
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- sacramento mountains
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I decided to get out for what might have been the last warm day in the 70's (Farenheit) for a walkabout to explore high country access and exit points for some long climbs I would like to do this winter. For this trip I rucked primarily in the lower Pennsylvanian formations looking specifically for a new occurrence of mineral rich shale formations similar to one I had found last year that yielded plant fossils. I did manage to find a small but new-to-me location that was very geologically complex having anomalies in the midst of the shale/sandstone formations. First thi
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Hello, this specimen is from an excursion in search of permineralized material in the upper formations of the lower Pennsylvanian Gobbler formation. In this particular formation I have found Psaronius and various Lycopsids, calamites&piths, etc. This is fairly weathered specimen in quartz sandstone, but the diamond pattern does not seem typical of Lepidodendron. Each 'diamond' seems more like a square. There appear to be 2 separate layers of diamond shaped material so these might be smaller branches toward the crown of a Lycopsid. The upper one is more
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- sacramento mountains
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These are from the Middle Pennsylvanian (Beeman) in southern New Mexico. 60mm seam of limestone embedded with gastropods. So deeply embedded and oriented as to make identification more challenging. Guess: Bellerophon * Surface is not smooth. * Appears to be symmetrical. * Ridge along the midline. Larger hash plate. Each of the larger gastropods is approximately 25mm. This plate is 220mm x 270mm at widest measurements. Smaller hash plate View of side of larger hash plate Ridge
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- sacramento mountains
- middle pennsylvanian
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Okay, while on a ramble in the mountains, among other things I chanced upon this pile of petrified wood. Looks like heavy iron mineralization. Black, red, orange, yellow and near white for colors. Banding in the wood. In the white area, it sure looks like insect bore holes like I used to see when cutting firewood. Not that it is, it just looks like it. This piece seemed to look it had bark to me. Or maybe it is where two branches split so the wood grain was heavily intermixed and confused. Again, I come up stumped with finding
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- sacramento mountains
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This is from the middle Pennsylvanian. Appears to be fusilinids in pink-red sandstone with several orange passengers onboard. They all appear to be centralized to a broken open fusilinid. Only one big enough to really get a couple macro shots of. Any ideas on the orange item? I didn't want to put too much pressure on it, but definitely quite hard (scratch resistant to a needle). 33mm x 25mm" as pictured. Orange unknown is 2mm.
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Okay, I left this specimen where I could find it in the future, but the sun and atmosphere was such I could not get a crisp photo or achieve a decent zoom. It almost appears bryozoan in nature, but the regular spacing and rounded conic shapes might be something someone has seen before?
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Hi, I believe this is a pelecypod. It was found in an early Pennsylvanian formation sandstone hash plate. Specimen is 3" overall. Would anyone have some thoughts to which superfamily, genus, etc., so I can dig a little deeper on my own? Thank you, Kato
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Hi, noone will hurt my feelings if this turns out to be geological and not an orthocone cast. I was exploring for other fossils when I chanced upon 3 separate specimens of the following. They were all about the same dimensions and appearance so I decided to bring one home. What the heck it only weighed a couple of pounds. 7.5" x 3" at the widest. Elliptical shape on left end a side view
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- orthocone
- lower pennsylvanian
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Recently completed a lengthy set of walkabouts in the lower Pennsylvanian. I have a lot that I can pseudo-identify and am comfortable leaving them alone for now. OTH, I am hopeful someone with the skills will provide some helpful nudges in assigning more accurate names to the following: I believe this is a coral. This is about 4" tall and 3.5" wide Zoom in I'm calling it a snail but I know that is not correct. Max length is 1.5" And then these mystery spine-like objects on a sort of mash plate. It is hard to tell but the long in
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- sacramento mountains
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I never cease to be amazed by the crazy things I find while stumbling around in the great outdoors like this odd remains of a crinoid. Mother Nature keeps me endlessly entertained. The rock has shells, bryozoa and other TBD's. The rock the specimen is in also just really, really light for its size and very porous in appearance. Lots of voids, some with very tiny shells inside. this seeming spiral gastropod is probably 2mm long and hiding in a void. not the best pic as taken indoors with lighting at night...but I hope you get the idea.
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- sacramento mountains
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Apologies, I was out looking for other kinds of permineralized material today and just as I was leaving the search area I found this sliver of material. For some reason I just can't get a good pic of it to convey the material better. I do hope to get back there to search for more material but my thought is this is fern. Maybe I need to get a bit more daylight and a little further away. 2.5" length, 1" width, 3/4" tall
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It’s winter and time to explore as many canyons as possible before it gets hot here. As always; in search of exercise, fossils and other items of interest. A visual summary of the ascent of one side canyon and the descent of the another. The entrance to the two canyon loop Today I had to share the trail Ordovician formations with small cave Ordovician staircase walkway in canyon bottom, Silurian cliffs at top of pic As the main canyon ascends, the hiking eventually meets where Ordovician contacts Silurian
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- sacramento mountains
- crinoids
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