Lower Carboniferous jellyfish

[Archie]

Got out to one of my favourite Blackhall Limestone sites in the Midland Valley of scotland for the first time in a while last week and made a few finds I was really pleased with. Found my smallest jellyfish so far at 25mm across (I'm told examples as small as 8mm have been found), a well preserved example of a Penniretepora sp. bryozoan for this site (thanks @TqB for the ID! ) and also a couple of teeth that still need some prep. A few months back at the same site I got another nice example of a Poecilodus jonesi posterior tooth plate that I never got round to posting here so here it is too, its 12mm across. 

 

 

 

 

[grandpa]

Archie, you find the coolest stuff.  I'm always very impressed with your posts.  I esp. like the shark teeth you find. 

[Fossildude19]

Great finds, Sam!

I agree with grandpa - you do find the coolest stuff.  

[Misha]

Super cool finds!

[deutscheben]

Really nice bunch! Each one is lovely. 

[Peat Burns]

[Ludwigia]

Very nice!

[Monica]

Great finds (as usual!)!  I am especially intrigued with the bryozoan you found - it looks so different from the kinds I usually see 

[TqB]

Great stuff, Sam, definitely my kind of site!

[Bobby Rico]

Very cool find . Good job. 

[Ruger9a]

Taking a step back to the 60's for a moment - Man, they're "Groovy"......

[FossilNerd]

Great stuff as usual! Thanks for sharing!  

[t-tree]

Great finds 

[Archie]

Thank you for all the kind comments everyone  

Hoping to get out to another very productive Blackhall Limestone site soon so will hopefully have some more to post!

[JimB88]

Thats an awesome find! Are jellyfish common there? That tooth is spectacular! I find those bryozoans here too.

[Wrangellian]

If the jellyfish are common there, I want one! (but I don't sense that they are, exactly...)

Interesting stuff, as always.

[Archie]

On 6/28/2020 at 10:51 PM, JimB88 said:

Thats an awesome find! Are jellyfish common there? That tooth is spectacular! I find those bryozoans here too.

 

On 6/30/2020 at 10:04 AM, Wrangellian said:

If the jellyfish are common there, I want one! (but I don't sense that they are, exactly...)

Interesting stuff, as always.

Thanks guys and sorry for the late replies just noticed your messages! The Jellyfish are fairly rare but they do turn up pretty regularly, I think they may be very common in certain beds but when your looking in piles of blocks from random beds in the formation (its about 20m thick here and the spoil heaps seem to be a jumble of every bed) it can be hard to tell if your looking in the right stuff for them. They're certainly more common than many of the teeth species and a lot of the inverts too at the two sites they've been found so far.  

[Archie]

Over the past few days Ive finally got round to finishing prepping a few old finds I'm really pleased with, some from last winter and some a good few years back, and all were from this same site so I'll post them here rather than start a new thread. The first is a big block of the massive/unbedded limestone that when found was a real mess of moss and mud but had a couple of big Gigantoproductus giganteus showing, I went to split it down to size and another couple just fell out, there was also a nice sized Petalodont tooth showing in cross section which all seemed to be there. After giving the block a good wash down another couple of partial brachs showed up and another small Petaldont tooth, Ctenopetalus seratus, on the front and a few more broken bits of teeth as well as a really interesting looking spine on the back I still need to do some work on. I did some sculpting with an angle grinder and acid to expose as much more of the brachs as I could then stuck the loose ones with the block with the other half of the Petadont back on and prepped that out, it turned to be a bit crushed at one end but a nice Petalodus acuminatus. For scale the biggest brach is 14cm across.

 

 

 

The Petalodus acuminatus

 

 

The Ctenopetalus serratus, its a bit worse for wear but think this block had been lying on the quarry floor thats since turned into a mature woodland for well over 100 years.

 

[Fossildude19]

    

[Archie]

Thanks Tim!!  

 

I was really chuffed with this one Ive no idea why I took so long to prep it, it had also been lying on the surface for a long time on the shaley limestone and was full of roots and starting to fall apart. Managed to get it cleaned up and feed some glue in without loosing any of it and then the little cusplets came out really nicely with just a bit of vinegar. The root was damaged and crumbly so decided to restore it to stabilize it, and also just to make it more of a looker  I need to paint it though to get a better colour match and I'm not very good at this! Saivodus striatus, 11mm from base to tip.

[Archie]

Another one Ive had waiting to be done a long time, it had split out badly sticking to the part and counterpart and looked much smaller than it turned out to be so I almost didnt bother keeping it, really glad I did though its turned out a lot better than I thought it would ! Pristodus sp. presumed upper dentition, 9mm across the base.

 

 

A few weeks back as well a friend found this lovely Deltoptychius sp. tooth plate in an old ironstone quarry (Ive never managed to find a tooth at) which is also Blackhall Limestone in the west of Scotland, she knows how much I love teeth and she's more into minerals, especially agates, so she really kindly gave me the tooth and got a bunch of Scottish agates in return  

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

More great finds. 

I love the brachiopods. 

[Archie]

11 minutes ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

More great finds. 

I love the brachiopods. 

Thank you!

I was delighted with this block because Ive always loved Gigantoproductus and they're pretty common but Ive just never managed to get a complete or uncrushed one before! I think they may be in life position as well, theres certainly other Blackhall Limestone localities where you can see beds of them still in life position. Theres a great example at Petershill SSSI in West Lothian. 

[deutscheben]

14 cm! Wow, those brachiopods really live up to their name. The teeth are all extremely nice too.

[JimB88]

Wow! Those are awesome finds (and great job prepping too btw!) You also inadvertently identified a cladontid tooth of mine - so thanks!