Ichnofossils, Algae, or Something Else? Part 3

[Paleome]

Ok, several more photos.  Now, these strips of oxidized material also have those very tiny filamentous fibers running along their length in the same direction as the strip, somewhat like the grain you see in wood.

 

These may be degraded specimens, with only a few single fibers left.  Some have many more fibers per square cm. Remember the oxidized hash (yellow/orange) I showed you previously which is just filled with these fibers? Maybe this particular stuff is actually a clump of algae, and not necessarily just tracks.

 

Maybe the strips without fibers, but instead with other 3-dimensional patterns such as chevrons, braiding, or helical, could be one or the other.  What if the helical pattern in a strand of algae could be the result of a worm boring through it and feeding on it, not just a worm boring through mud?

 

I just obtained a fascinating book entitled "The Trace Fossil Record of Major Evolutionary Events",  Topics in Geobiology 39, Volume 1, Precambrian and Paleozoic, edited by M. Gabriela Manzano and Luis A. Buatois.  This book is filled with lots of fantastic photos of ichnofossils, especially cruziana, and suggestions  to back up these findings.  Some of these traces look so intricate and real as being the fossils themselves, one can be easily fooled!  There are many problematica out there!

 

Anyway, I recommend this, and other books and articles on Ichnology, as great reads, and very eye-opening.  And not everything that has been published as being this or that, is absolutely set in stone (pardon my pun).  Just like the scientific names of the life forms we find in our searches, they change constantly, the more we discover about them.