December 2019 - Finds of the Month Entries

[paleoflor]

On 12/27/2019 at 2:44 PM, Strepsodus said:

Calamostachys ramosa

Upper Carboniferous

Pennine Lower Coal Measures formation

Wakefield, West Yorkshire, UK

Found Friday, 27th of December 2019

 

Beautiful specimen! Could you explain how you arrived at Calamostachys ramosa, though? Based on the photographs I would say these are some type of lycopsid branches, rather than calamite reproductive structures. What diagnostic characteristics have I missed?

[Strepsodus]

1 hour ago, paleoflor said:

Beautiful specimen! Could you explain how you arrived at Calamostachys ramosa, though? Based on the photographs I would say these are some type of lycopsid branches, rather than calamite reproductive structures. What diagnostic characteristics have I missed?

I will change the identification to lycopsid branches.  Initially I was quite confident that it is Calamostachys but then I started to doubt myself.

 

Thanks,

Daniel

[fifbrindacier]

On 12/27/2019 at 6:29 PM, Dave (POM) Allen said:

found 6 days ago miniture fossil coconut (Cocos zeylandica) 40mm long, a small extinct species found only in New Zealand, from Coopers Beach, Mangonui (Doubtless Bay), Northland dating from the early Miocene 16-24myo

 

Collected: December 23rd, 2019

Miniature fossil coconut (Cocos zeylandica)

Early Miocene 16-24myo

Coopers Beach, Mangonui (Doubtless Bay)

Northland, New Zealand

 

    

Nice nut ! I will have difficulties to choose between the invertebrate entries !

[Dave pom Allen]

2 hours ago, fifbrindacier said:

Nice nut ! I will have difficulties to choose between the invertebrate entries !

taken me 18years to find this one.

[fifbrindacier]

4 hours ago, Dave (POM) Allen said:

taken me 18years to find this one.

At about 40 kilometers from my house, there is a site where you can find fossilized coconuts, sadly, it is forbidden to search there.

[digit]

I had never before considered the possibility of fossilized coconuts and now I desperately want to go find one.

 

Another great month with a wonderful diversity of beautiful and interesting entries. You all only have till tomorrow night to get in any last minute fossils for this month's contest.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[piranha]

Here is a summary of the fossil record of coconuts:

 

 

A fossil of middle Eocene age, Astrocaryum olssoni was discovered by A. Olsson in Negritos in northwestern Peru. These calcified asymmetrical nuts range from 3.75 to 5.25 cm in length and 2.5 to 3.75 cm in diameter and have a fibrous outer layer, an inner layer 2-3 mm thick, and an interior filled with structureless calcified material (Berry,1926a). Other fossil endocarps aged between 12 and 45 Ma have been found in Boulder Hill, Otago, and Wharekuri, Canterbury, New Zealand; they are 3.5-12 cm long and have distinctive Cocoeae pores (Campbell et al., 2000). Berry (1926b) and Couper (1952) reported Cocos-like fossils from Cooper's Beach, Mangonui Auckland New Zealand, that are from the Miocene period. The endocarps of the fossil Cocos zeylandica (15-12 mya) resemble closely those of the extant Parajubaea torallyi (Campbell et al., 2000). Fliche (1896) described a fossil fruit named Cocopsis from the Argonne of France of Miocene age.

 

Fossil Cocos fruit from Chinchilla Sand, Queensland (Australia) of the latest Pliocene (2 mya), most resembles the extant Cocos nucifera (Rigby,1995). The silicified fruit (10 cm long x 9.5 cm max. diam.) with three pores was also associated with other silicified palmwood and megafauna bones. Kaul (1951) recorded Cocos sahni embedded in diatomous deposits from the early Tertiary (Eocene) in the mines at Kapurdi, Western Rajasthan, India. Patil and Upadhye (1984) described a petrified fruit of Cocos intertrappeansis from the Tertiary of Mohgaonkalan, Madhya Pradesh. Tripathi et al. (1999) illustrated a fossil fruit very similar to Cocos nucifera from the Tertiary of Amarkantak, Madhya Pradesh. It is much larger than the others from India, measuring 13 x 10 x 6 cm with a thin epicarp, wide and fibrous mesocarp, and well-developed hardened endocarp. The now extinct Paschalococos disperta from Easter Island was described by Dransfield et al. (1984). Its fruits are are very similar to those of the extant Jubaea chilensis from Chile.
 

At circa Eocene (55-37 mya) fossil Cocoeae fruits were present in South America, New Zealand, and India; Miocene (22-5 mya) endocarps have been found in New Zealand and Africa, Pliocene (5-2 mya) fruits in Australia and India, and recent partial endocarps (800 years old) on Easter Island. By the Eocene Cococeae were already in existence, and therefore probably arose as a lineage sometime earlier, quite possibily the late Paleogene (65-60 mya) since palms were already well diversified as evidenced by the fossil records (Raven & Axelrod,1974; Muller,1979; McLoughlin, 2001).

 

As South America and Africa had been separated by then, ca. 95-100 mya (Coldblatt,1993: 23), it is quite possible that Jubaeopsis arrived in Africa by long-distance dispersal. The fruit (24 cm long) looks like a miniature coconut and possesses a thin fibrous mesocarp covering a hard inner endocarp. It is restricted near the estuarine banks of the Metentu, Msikaba, and Mzinlaua Rivers of the eastern coast of South Africa (Tuley, 1995). The distance between the southern tip of South America and that of South Africa was not great during the Eocene (Coldblatt,1993), and the ocean currents were moving westward (Axelrod & Raven, 1978).
 

Within the Cocos alliance, the age of the node (chronogram, not shown) subtending Parajubaeais at least 29.87-29.44 million years, and the node closest to it subtending the crown group of Cocos nucifera is aged at 22.20-26.84 million years (see Table 2). Thus the minimum age of divergence of Parajubaea and Cocos nucifera is approximately 23 million years. This finding suggests that the coconut belongs to an ancient lineage with its wild progenitors occurring in the Neotropics, and it may be possible that Cocos nucifera is the only extant species of this lineage. Rigby (1995) reported a Cocos nucifera fossil in Chincilla Sand, Queensland (Australia), of Pliocene age (2 mya). This large fossil Cocos has the three pores at one end distinctive of the cocosoid palms. This also eliminates any action of humans in the original distribution of Cocos nucifera, although the dispersal of it in the Pacific in recent times was partly the responsibility of humans. At the time of divergence of the putative progenitors of the Cocos nucifera, separation of South America from West Antarctica had already taken place (30 mya) as the Powell Basin opened up the Scotia Sea to create the Drake Passage (Hallam, 1981). The geological ages of the Cocoeae endocarp fossils found in New Zealand fall into two groups-Eocene and Miocene. The Eocene group found on the eastern side of the South Island is postulated here to have arrived from South America via the Antarctic land bridge, but the Miocene group found on the northern shores of the North Island persisted till much later when New Zealand moved northward resulting in subtropical climates in the North Island during the Miocene. The emergence of volcanic archipelagos to the north enabled the exchange of subtropical taxa to and from New Zealand (Raven & Axelrod, 1972).
 

The early lineage of Cocos nucifer most likely possessed some means of water dispersal. The fruit of Cocos nucifer differs most prominently from those of other Cocoeae in its large size, thick layer of fibrous mesocarp, and its large endocarp with a huge cavity lined with a layer of hard endosperm and filled with liquid endosperm. This adaptation for floating and the enclosed vessel protecting the developing embryo would probably enable it to cross ocean barriers and establish successfully. Edmonson (1941) suggested that the coconut can float in the ocean for up to three months and still be viable.
 

It may be hypothesized that Cocoeae may have originated in South America during the Paleogene, diversified and spread eastward to Africa, Madagascar, and India and southward to Australasia and New Zealand through the western Antarctic corridor (till the Oligocene). The putative progenitors of the coconut were from South America and became widely distributed in the Old World by long-distance water dispersal. The Deccan Traps of India have a well-studied paleobotanical flora (Prakash, 1958) and show affinities of those of the Gondwanan continents. It is postulated that Cocoeae migrated to India from Madagascar after the divergence of the basal clade via long-distance dispersal as the fossil endocarps found in India were of lower Eocene age, when India had already separated from Madagascar. These fossils were described as having fibrousm esocarps (see Patil & Upadhye, 1984, and Tripathi et al., 1999).

 

text from:

 

Gunn, B.F. 2004
The Phylogeny of the Cocoeae (Arecaceae) with Emphasis on Cocos nucifera.
Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden, 91(3):505-522  PDF LINK

[RuMert]

Hmm, too much competition for multiple entries:) Here's my corrected and improved (hopefully) single entry:

 

Name: Amoeboceras alternoides (Nikitin, 1878) ammonite and Dicroloma cochleata (Quenstedt, 1858) gastropod assemblage

Age: Upper Oxfordian

Location: Bronnitsy, Moscow Oblast, Russia

Date of finding: December 11, 2019 

Date of preparation: December 29, 2019

 

The assemblage was found as below:

 

I thought about cleaning out the fossils, but the dry clay was too hard. I found out however it was enough to moisten it a bit to soften dramatically, but here came another problem - everything but a few phragmacones is preserved squished and holds together in dry matrix only - a light needle movement and an important part  of the fossil would be destroyed. This was seriously complicated by the fact that I have never practiced preparation of such small and fragile material (basically all I used before was a hammer and a chisel and a bit of glue here and there) and didn't have proper equipment. Anyway the temptation was too strong so that I spent a few hours (obviously very far from pro preparators' years of work) with a hand lens, tweezers and a couple of needles. That's what I've got:

 

 

The ammonite is 100% genuine with no reconstruction. Here it's wet, the color was not altered compared to the 1st pic. The living chamber is squished typically for that formation. The matrix is generously soaked in glue (which was probably too much). The gastropod shell is genuine, in its original position and the 2 thick appendages are as they were. The 3rd thin spine was not preserved (a matrix fracture going through the place where it may have been). I took the liberty of changing it for exactly same spine from an exactly same gastropod found nearby. The shell pillar is partially reconstructed in the same manner.

The gastropod itself should look like this (view from the back, found on the same fossil hunt):

 

So that's my prepjob of this specimen. Unfortunately it was too rough and didn't save everything it could (all parts of the nacre and shell material), but at least it gives the idea of two fascinating species of our Oxfordian fauna

 

 

[mamlambo]

I found this fossil on Motunau Beach, New Zealand late on 5 Dec 2019 and with the help of TFF member's identified it as a baleen whale skull from the Miocene era. I set off early the next morning and retrieved it from the beach with a small wagon - not an easy task! I made a video of the retrieval which can be found here: https://youtu.be/2dyv8loQPxo

Date of Discovery: 5 Dec 2019

Scientific and/or Common Name: Unknown baleen whale partial skull

Geologic Age or Geologic Formation: Greta Formation, 2.5 million years old (Nukumaruan stage)

State, Province, or Region Found: North Canterbury, New Zealand

Photos of Find:

 

[mamlambo]

My second entry is my first Moa bone I've ever found, also the only Moa bone I would have been able to identify! Turned an average hunt into an unforgettable one! I was with @Doctor Mud when I found it.

 

Date of Discovery: 23 Dec 2019

Scientific and/or Common Name: Moa tarsometatarsus bone (I would guess a medium sized Moa)

Geologic Age or Geologic Formation: 70 000 to 100 000 year old

State, Province, or Region Found: North Canterbury, New Zealand

[Ash]

On 12/27/2019 at 7:02 AM, Jesuslover340 said:

I feel compelled to add to this month's entries, given the significance of the find and the limited chance of ever finding anything quite so spectacular again. So I'd like to include this associated left manus of a Palorchestes azael, described in more detail in this thread:

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/100844-australias-answer-to-a-giant-ground-sloth/&tab=comments#comment-1119793

 

Date of Discovery: 9 December 2019

Scientific and/or Common Name: Palorchestes sp. (azael?)

Geologic Age or Geologic Formation: Pleistocene

State, Province, or Region Found: Queensland

Photos of Find:

  

 

 

Skye, every time I see this sitting on the table I still get jealous you spotted it before me! Crazy to think it’s the first for its species, too.. lucky I’m married to ya so it’s also mine by default

[Jesuslover340]

20 minutes ago, Ash said:

 

Skye, every time I see this sitting on the table I still get jealous you spotted it before me! Crazy to think it’s the first for its species, too.. lucky I’m married to ya so it’s also mine by default

It is VERY surreal that it's the ONLY manus known for P. azael in existence thus far. But there's a lot of things I spot that you miss and vice versa-like how you're about to miss the start of the New Year if it weren't for me about to wake you in a few minutes I suppose you get that by default, too, marrying a night owl Love you!

[Ash]

7 hours ago, Jesuslover340 said:

It is VERY surreal that it's the ONLY manus known for P. azael in existence thus far. But there's a lot of things I spot that you miss and vice versa-like how you're about to miss the start of the New Year if it weren't for me about to wake you in a few minutes I suppose you get that by default, too, marrying a night owl Love you!

 

Oii! I made it through! Jusst.. love ya too, Oaks.

[digit]

Nothing better than a couple with a shared love of hunting fossils. Best wishes from the last of 2019.....

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken