Hunting for Dakota Sandstone Leaves

[Darbi]

Finding the fossilized leaves from Dakota formation (also known as Dakota Sandstone) has been one of my goals for a long time. Today I headed to Ellsworth County, Kansas, where the Dakota Sandstone are located and hunt for the fossilized leaves. Unfortunately it's mostly a bust, but I did find a couple possible wood fossils and a few interesting rocks. I didn't take anything home this time except some pictures and memories. 

 

 

Notice the trees following along the small stream. 

 

Interesting sandstone!

 

Interesting ironstone concretion!

 

...Continued on the next post.

 

[Darbi]

 

These eroded sandstone formation along the minimum maintained gravel road can easily bust your vehicle's axle if you're not careful, especially in the night or during the rainstorm! Notice the turtle carapace in the center of this picture. This poor thing seem got trapped in the fissure and died. I tried to free the carapace and it broke in half, it was trapped snug there!

 

There's a few shallow pools of water in the fissure. There's a good number of leopard frogs (Lithobates blairi) resting there. 

 

That fat locust again! 

 

...Continued on the next post.

[Darbi]

Possibly petrified woods in the concretions.

Slightly different angle of the same one.

 

 

Possibly a fossilized burrow.

 

Liesegang rings or something. It's embedded in the bedrock so I didn't attempt to extract it.

 

I'll be posting separate topics in the ID section to seek out people's opinions on these possible fossils.

 

That's all folks!

[piranha]

These references should be useful:

 

locality map from:

 

Retallack, G.J., Dilcher, D.L. 1981

A Coastal Theory of Flowering Plant Origin. pp. 27-77

Paleobotany, Paleoecology, and Evolution. Praeger Publishers, 336 pp.  PDF LINK

 

Wang, H. 2002

Diversity of Angiosperm Leaf Megafossils from the Dakota Formation (Cenomanian, Cretaceous), North Western Interior, USA.

PhD Thesis, University of Florida, 395 pp.  PDF LINK

 

[Darbi]

44 minutes ago, piranha said:

These references should be useful:

 

locality map from:

 

Retallack, G.J., Dilcher, D.L. 1981

A Coastal Theory of Flowering Plant Origin. pp. 27-77

Paleobotany, Paleoecology, and Evolution. Praeger Publishers, 336 pp.  PDF LINK

 

Wang, H. 2002

Diversity of Angiosperm Leaf Megafossils from the Dakota Formation (Cenomanian, Cretaceous), North Western Interior, USA.

PhD Thesis, University of Florida, 395 pp.  PDF LINK

 

 

Thank you!