historianmichael Posted June 21, 2020 Share Posted June 21, 2020 For Father's Day Weekend my dad and I drove into Pennsylvania yesterday to collect Ordovician fossils at a location I read about with access to the Salona Formation. With rain in the forecast I was a little worried the trip would be a total wash. Instead, we experienced beating sun, and, having left our hats at home, we quickly began to overheat. My dad also found two snakes while overturning some large rocks. To say the least my dad was ready to leave after an hour. Luckily I was able to convince him that if he wanted to stop he should at least let me poke around for another 30 minutes. While I was poking around my dad decided that it would be safer for him to remove and examine new material than to work in the talus. We worked for another hour before calling it a day. When we got home I went to work washing off the many hash plates my dad exposed while removing new material. The plates were covered in a fine layer of dust so it was incredible to see what they fully held after washing them off. As I was washing one plate I had to stop myself in the middle. I could not believe my eyes. In the bottom corner of one plate there was a rather familiar shape that I was not expecting to see. I immediately knew what it had to be. In all of the literature I have seen no mention of starfish fossils being found at this site. Given that my dad was ready to leave after an hour I consider this find even more lucky. Although I did not have anything to go on, I believe that the starfish is Promopalaester bellulus. It certainly made for an exciting and memorable Father's Day Weekend! Here are some of our other exciting finds: Hash Plates with Bits of Cryptolithus Ventral Ceraurus Cephalon Pygidial Spine of Ceraurus Ventral Isotelus Thorax 13 Link to post Share on other sites
Archie Posted June 21, 2020 Share Posted June 21, 2020 Awesome finds! The starfish is amazing Link to post Share on other sites
piranha Posted June 21, 2020 Share Posted June 21, 2020 On 6/21/2020 at 11:28 AM, historianmichael said: Thorax Cross Section of Ceraurus Pygidial Spine of Ceraurus Very nice finds ... Congrats! http://www.twcenter.net/forums/images/smilies/emoticons/happy0144.gif The specimen labeled thorax is a ventral cheirurid cephalon. The next one is a genal spine of Cryptolithus. The arrows highlight some pits and a partial outline of the girder. Hughes, C.P., Ingham, J.K., Addison, R. 1975 The Morphology, Classification and Evolution of the Trinucleidae (Trilobita). Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, B 272:537-604 PDF LINK 3 Link to post Share on other sites
Misha Posted June 21, 2020 Share Posted June 21, 2020 Absolutely gorgeous fossils! Link to post Share on other sites
historianmichael Posted June 21, 2020 Author Share Posted June 21, 2020 @piranha Thank you so much! I have edited the post with the update on the Ceraurus cephalon. Is the last photo at least a thorax cross section of Isotelus? It is about 65 mm across. My initial thought on the other photo was Cryptolithus as well, but this fossil is much larger than any other Cryptolithus fossil I have ever seen. It measures about 47 mm. That is why I thought Ceraurus. Link to post Share on other sites
piranha Posted June 21, 2020 Share Posted June 21, 2020 I agree the large size is a match for Isotelus. The morphology of the spine is incorrect for Ceraurus. With a 10x loupe can you confirm the presence of any pits or is it just an optical illusion? Link to post Share on other sites
historianmichael Posted June 21, 2020 Author Share Posted June 21, 2020 @piranha I think it is just an optical illusion. What looks like pits are more like tiny holes. They lack the ordered pattern of the pits in Cryptolithus. Perhaps it is an area before the pits began. Here are some other photos of that spot under magnification. Link to post Share on other sites
Monica Posted June 21, 2020 Share Posted June 21, 2020 WOW!!! That starfish is an AMAZING find - congratulations to you and your dad!!! Link to post Share on other sites
FossilDAWG Posted June 22, 2020 Share Posted June 22, 2020 The trilobits are mighty fine, but that starfish is a truly exceptional find! Don Link to post Share on other sites
FossilNerd Posted June 23, 2020 Share Posted June 23, 2020 Very nice finds! Link to post Share on other sites
RJB Posted June 23, 2020 Share Posted June 23, 2020 I'm not into hash plates, but I will make an exception for the starfish one. Very cool find indeed!!! RB Link to post Share on other sites
Jeffrey P Posted June 23, 2020 Share Posted June 23, 2020 That starfish is an extraordinary find. Big congratulations. Link to post Share on other sites
Tidgy's Dad Posted July 4, 2020 Share Posted July 4, 2020 Stonking Starfish! Link to post Share on other sites
I_gotta_rock Posted July 4, 2020 Share Posted July 4, 2020 That really is fantastic! I was out poking around the Salona myself last weekend. Haven't sorted it all out yet, but pretty much all brachiopods. I did find a sweet little crinoid stem, which for some odd reason are rather rare in the Salona, or at least the site I was at. Everything else was brachiopods and a couple trilo-bits. Someone took over my brachiopod spot when I gave up sorting through a bed of all the same species and - lo and behold- found a p[late with to very nice trilobites that I was probably sitting on! I also met a friendly milk snake. Link to post Share on other sites
historianmichael Posted November 19, 2020 Author Share Posted November 19, 2020 UPDATE: Earlier this week I received the sea star back from a professional preparer. He did an incredible job at exposing the full morphology of the sea star. Since then I have had conversations with several people who study extinct asteroids and received confirmation that this sea star is likely actually Macroporaster matutinus (?). I have been told that this is a rare find. Even though everyone I spoke with was amazed with the preservation of this sea star, I was encouraged to put a question mark next to the name due to several pieces of incomplete information. Given the size of this sea star, I was also told that it is likely immature but that it is hard to be sure due to the same limitations. 7 Link to post Share on other sites
thair Posted November 20, 2020 Share Posted November 20, 2020 The star is really cool. Nice find Link to post Share on other sites
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