Show Us Your Ichnofossils--Part 1

[Plantguy]

So, I was going to open this topic called “Show me your Ichnofossils (aka Trace fossils) and we’d all get to see all kinds of feeding traces, tracks, footprints, burrows and other items, then this afternoon my 90lb dog left me a large gift on the carpet so I’m amending the request and excluding Coprolites from you all, which are ok, but I don’t want to really see them now—OK??!! LOL

How about we call this Ichnofossils (part 1---Tracks/trackways/burrows/other traces only) for now!! Some other brave member or moderator can initiate Ichno part 2---Coprolites!)

Here are 2 for starters--I'm sure you all have some better ones of these and lots more variety out there--let's seem them! Regards, Chris

A trilobite trackway Arkansas

A mammal like reptile? Cheilichnus trackway, Arizona

[Auspex]

These are my favorites:

Bird tracks and rain drops, Eocene, Kemmerer, WY.

Bird tracks with feeding marks (Presbyornis), Eocene, Rock Springs, WY.

Petrified wood with bird feeding damage, Oligocene, Western Desert, Egypt.

[fig rocks]

Cool, fossil evidence of animal activity! :ph34r: Kinda like CSI! :pic:

[Plantguy]

Auspex, Great stuff! The coloration and the details in the bird track/rain drop photo is really super. Feeding marks--oh very nice! thanks for sharing. Regards, Chris

[Guest solius symbiosus]

Some worm trails on a firmground.

This bed is overlain by siliciclastic storm deposits. I assume that the worms would burrow through the newly laid deposits in search of a meal???

Probable mouth part of the critter that left the trails.

I also have some nice zoophycus, somewhere. I will have to find them.

[Terry Dactyll]

The trackways are fantastic..... I love the bird ones... wow.....

Ive only got ripple marks......Upper carboniferous....

[Plantguy]

Very nice ripple marks and worm burrows/critter mouth parts, Gentlemen! I wish I had some. Thanks for sharing.

The burrow shots reminded me of this irregular vertical burrow I had collected, piece by piece, out of a set of thin horizontal beds in Death Valley, Calif. (I spent 30 minutes and actually labled each piece with a letter trying to keep them in order).

Not sure what kind of animal would have created it..

The burrow itself was over a foot long originally but I only have this short section left (I do remember it was a geology mapping field trip in the big desert and there was some amount of tequila drinking at that time) Many collected specimens did not make the trip back!

[Auspex]

...The burrow shots reminded me of this irregular vertical burrow I had collected, piece by piece, out of a set of thin horizontal beds in Death Valley, Calif....

That's wild! Do the segments coincide with the layers of sediment?

[Guest solius symbiosus]

I recently saw a rusophycus from an asaphid that preserved the soft tissue organs, ie, legs, antennas, etc. Unfortunately, the custodian of the piece is writing it up, and didn't want a photo published on-line.

It appears that this is the first time that this type of preservation has been documented.

[Plantguy]

That's wild! Do the segments coincide with the layers of sediment?

Auspex, More or less. If I had to do it over again I would have left some of the matrix to give a better perspective of how the burrow was going thru the bedding planes. A couple of the segments actually fell out of the matrix but I used pliers to simply remove the others...It was many, many years ago and if I had to do it over again and I wasnt supposed to actually be mapping at the time I'd brought back half of that sandstone outcrop along with another truckload of stuff...

[Plantguy]

I recently saw a rusophycus from an asaphid that preserved the soft tissue organs, ie, legs, antennas, etc. Unfortunately, the custodian of the piece is writing it up, and didn't want a photo published on-line.

It appears that this is the first time that this type of preservation has been documented.

Solius, that sounds really fascinating....I'm no expert so correct me but for the others that are reading this we are talking about a trilobite that was at rest on the soft ocean floor and left impressions of its morphology....Rusophycus is the genus assigned to that resting trace. These traces can show a bug simply resting, feeding/hunting, hiding, or even making a nest. Cruziana is the genus assigned to traces of them moving. Keep us posted Solius...thanks!

I know posting links is sometimes questionable as they can go dead but

I did see one old (1977) Journal of Paleo write up on a isotelenid/asaphid occurance similar to what you are descibing...very rare stuff!!...this was from France/Spain http://www.jstor.org/pss/1303619

Here's also a link showing the different kinds of trace fossils that trilobites left us.... http://www.trilobites.info/trace.htm

Thanks Solius, Regards, Chris

[Ron E.]

Those are amazing, Auspex! I don't think I've ever seen bird traces before!

Edited to add: The husband of a coworker has promised to give me some trilo traces soon, I'll post here when I get them.

Edited December 12, 2009 by Ron E.

[Guest guppy-boy]

cool !!!

[Terry Dactyll]

Chris.... I hadnt realised burrows were included and I thought of a couple I had.... one is pretty obvious and runs through a nodule, I've often thought is there is something organic contained within the burrow for the nodule to form... but I dont want to wreck the borrow finding out.... this is uppercarboniferous westphalian..... and the other is a burrow in the sand running from bottom left going towards the frond... This one isnt so well defined , its made out of a much harder matrix and the entrance is visible on the edge of the rock... jurassic zamites gigas.... Whitby.... uk

[Guest N.AL.hunter]

Posted before, but just in case you have never seen it:

http://bama.ua.edu/~rbuta/monograph/database/database.html

[Plantguy]

Posted before, but just in case you have never seen it:

http://bama.ua.edu/~rbuta/monograph/database/database.html

N.AL.hunter, thanks for the repost of the link. Yep, I missed that one...There's a heap of photos in there! I'm still looking and will be tomorrow and the next day!!!Very cool! WOW..any chance you got to help collect any of this stuff???Thanks.....

THE STEVEN C. MINKIN PALEOZOIC FOOTPRINT SITE. This website includes 2,853 photographs of 1,929 slabs/specimens of early Pennsylvanian-age amphibian trackways and other trace fossils

Edited December 13, 2009 by Plantguy

[Plantguy]

Chris.... I hadnt realised burrows were included and I thought of a couple I had.... one is pretty obvious and runs through a nodule, I've often thought is there is something organic contained within the burrow for the nodule to form... but I dont want to wreck the borrow finding out.... this is uppercarboniferous westphalian..... and the other is a burrow in the sand running from bottom left going towards the frond... This one isnt so well defined , its made out of a much harder matrix and the entrance is visible on the edge of the rock... jurassic zamites gigas.... Whitby.... uk

TD,thanks for the shots of the burrows.

Sweet burrow in the nodule...I've seen some before and as you've suggested you might find something organic--maybe a burrowing crustracean inside---wouldnt that be incredibly nice, but certainly nice anyway! Did you collect that? Is the burrow angle/nodule oriented as it would have been found in the sediments/bedding plane?

The Zamites specimen/trace is super! The frond alone gets a WOW from me and then add an ichnofossil! Oh yeah!

Ok, I have a very simple mind!!! Plants, inverts, it doesnt take much to make my day!! I do have some Vert stuff..more on that in future posts...

Thanks TD! Regards, Chris

[Terry Dactyll]

Chris....I collect most of my own stuff as you know but in this case the nodule was in a spoil heap not in situ so im not sure about bedding plains or orientation and it was picked up initially by a friend I was collecting with walking round the site, he tapped it, and when he discovered what it was he didnt want it, so I said Id have it....glad i did now ...lol....the zamites, i noticed a row of holes running on the edge of a sandstone block, when i gave it the tap, it split open... I onlt carried half back up the cliff, mind you i you saw the cliff, youd know why ...lol.....

[squalicorax]

bird tracks from the green river

[Auspex]

I've added a couple neat ones since my last post in this topic...

Asscoiation; bird tracks and probable tapir tracks (Green River Eocene):

Large bird tracks, ripple marks, and vine-like vegetation (Hell Creek Cretaceous!):

[Ludwigia]

Hi Chris,

I've got one for us which I've also already posted elsewhere, but I thought I could duplicate it here.

It's a Repichnia, in this case tracks called Gyrochorte comosa possibly created by worms. They are relatively easy to find over here if you know exactly where to look for them, since they occur in a particular layer in the Opalinuston Formation of the lower Aalenian which stretches over great distances and is therefore used as stratigraphic orientation. The bank is called the "Zopfplatten", which directly translated means "Braid plates", a name which would occur to anyone who may uncover them for the first time. The plate is 15x15cm.

Thanks for starting this interesting thread!

Best wishes, Roger

[flyguy784]

Very nice ripple marks and worm burrows/critter mouth parts, Gentlemen! I wish I had some. Thanks for sharing.

The burrow shots reminded me of this irregular vertical burrow I had collected, piece by piece, out of a set of thin horizontal beds in Death Valley, Calif. (I spent 30 minutes and actually labled each piece with a letter trying to keep them in order).

Not sure what kind of animal would have created it..

The burrow itself was over a foot long originally but I only have this short section left (I do remember it was a geology mapping field trip in the big desert and there was some amount of tequila drinking at that time) Many collected specimens did not make the trip back!

Could one of the more knowledgable collectors explain to me how this is possible? A foot long, thru multiple layers of sedamentation. Wouldn't that have to say, the various layers were layed down in very, very short sequences? Wouldn't 12 inches of layer upon layer equate to at least hundreds of years if not thousands? Unless the environment was extremely volatile. I'm really curious about how this could have happened. I can see, and often do, with layers in the formations up here, a creature being able to burrow down 12 inches in a single layer (muddy shoreline) maybe even two. I hope I'm making myself clear here.

[Auspex]

As far as rate of deposition goes, coulda' been fast or slow; 'cause the critter probably burrowed through them after they were in place. I've no idea how it would come to pass that the burrow is segmented; that's why I asked whether the segments coincided with the sediment layers.

[Bullsnake]

Those bird tracks are awesome! Amazing that something so fragile, susceptible to the elements, could even preserve, especially when it was raining!

I was hesitant to even post after the previous, remarkable specimens.

But anyway, posted awhile back in ID help, so I'm sorry if it's cheating.

From my field collection. Quarried limestone at a community park, approximately 3ft. wide, probably upper Pennsylvanian.

[Jurassic Jim]

Here is an example of Asteriacites (starfish resting places) from the Mid-Carboniferous of NW Alabama. These are small only about 1" across.

Edited June 26, 2011 by Jurassic Jim