Cory's Lane Fossil

[Nicknads]

IMG_0211.HEIC

IMG_0212.HEIC

 

Positive and negative imprint of a fossil found in the shale at Cory's Lane. Vaguely appears to be a pinecone but not sure. What does everyone thinks?

 

 

[caldigger]

Please post picture directly to this post.

I tried to view it and it requires an app. to access your picture files.  

[Rockwood]

It's a slippery little devil. I can open it but I can't post it. 

I think I've seen it described as lycopod cortex that is poorly preserved as some kind of mineral. It's fairly common at that site.

[Fossildude19]

I converted them online, and posted them to the original post. 

 

@fiddlehead    @paleoflor

[digit]

Vague for sure--I'm not familiar with fossils from this region but I'm not seeing anything that I can detect beyond geological features. Care to point out where you think you are seeing something?

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Pemphix]

9 minutes ago, digit said:

Vague for sure--I'm not familiar with fossils from this region but I'm not seeing anything that I can detect beyond geological features. Care to point out where you think you are seeing something?

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

Same with me...

[westcoast]

Possible thin flattened bivalve..maybe. perhaps another photo with different lighting might help.

[Fossildude19]

10 minutes ago, westcoast said:

Possible thin flattened bivalve..maybe. perhaps another photo with different lighting might help.

I don't believe bivalves have ever been found at the site.  

[Rockwood]

Graphite yes, clam coal, not so much.

[Pagurus]

 The fossils at Corys Lane are from the Rhode Island formation, late Pennsylvanian, approximately equivalent to  the Stephanian of Europe. approximately 290 mya.  I know only of plant fossils from the site, although trace fossils are also a possibility. I don't see anything in the above photos that I could identify as a fossil, though it's very difficult to photograph many of these black-on-black finds, and it's often difficult to see them even in hand. The preservation is often poor at the Corys Lane site, and very often badly distorted by metamorphic forces. I find myself constantly scrutinizing the shale, trying to decide if the image or impression I'm looking at is fossil or geological. It often isn't obvious. 

[digit]

Sounds like Mazon Creek with their Rorschach inkblot test fossils have competition from this site. Since this is a Pennsylvanian site (290 Ma) that precludes any actual pine cone as pines seem to only date back to 140 Ma. The possibility of some sort of fruiting body still exists if the object in question actually contains a plant fossil (or any fossil at all). If many of the actual fossils are distorted through metamorphic forces, like the tectonically deformed trilobites we've seen here from France, then perhaps the patterning seen on this item is simply the result of geological deformation and not anything of biological origin.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Rockwood]

Here is an example of the stuff I have from the site as an example of the preservation.

[Pagurus]

 

These are a few fossils I've found at Corys Lane, and I'm not even sure of the first one. As @Rockwood suggested, lycopod cortex is not uncommon there, and I think this may be an example.

 

 

 

This looks like a distorted fern, 

 

and maybe Cordaites?

 

But I've also found some excellent, fairly well preserved ferns, with just a little distortion:

 

 

 

 

[Rockwood]

52 minutes ago, Pagurus said:

lycopod cortex is not uncommon there, and I think this may be an example.

Preserved as little more than a distortion in the bedding with a bit of checkering and a whisp of a coppery colored mineral.

And if you need to make a note a sliver makes a fine pencil. 

[Rockwood]

I was just going through some of my collection and came across this example that ties the checkered structure with  the cortex/periderm idea quite nicely.