Platycrinites columnals, UK

[TqB]

This is a scarce crinoid in the Mississippian of my area, usually found here as isolated columnals (and never articulated). So I was pleased to find this group yesterday on my first 2020 trip to a favourite locality in the Durham Dales.

Needs a bit of TLC and probably light air abrading (it's fragile) but not bad for a quick brush and rinse.

 

Mississippian, Brigantian, Three Yard Limestone (shale parting), Co. Durham, NE England.

 

 

 

Edited September 11, 2020 by TqB

[Tidgy's Dad]

Beautiful! 

I went to school in Cheddar and used to skive off and walk up through the Gorge and onto the hills nearby. 

In the area around Charterhouse there were old Roman lead mines and in the spoil heaps from these I would find little bits of bryozoa, small horn corals and crinoid columnals, all free from matrix. These fascinating oval Platycrinites were rare, but I must have collected a couple of dozen in total, one with a face missing, so you could see the hollow interior and supporting rod across the length of the columnal. 

Don't know where they went, unfortunately. Lost them in one of my moves, I suppose. 

[TqB]

34 minutes ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

Beautiful! 

I went to school in Cheddar and used to skive off and walk up through the Gorge and onto the hills nearby. 

In the area around Charterhouse there were old Roman lead mines and in the spoil heaps from these I would find little bits of bryozoa, small horn corals and crinoid columnals, all free from matrix. These fascinating oval Platycrinites were rare, but I must have collected a couple of dozen in total, one with a face missing, so you could see the hollow interior and supporting rod across the length of the columnal. 

Don't know where they went, unfortunately. Lost them in one of my moves, I suppose. 

Thanks, Adam! 

A beautiful area which we've often visited but never collected around (the inlaws lived at Westbury sub Mendip, just down the road) (and a very sensible skive). Sorry you've lost them (a familiar tale to me too) - that assemblage sounds similar to the other Brigantian one where I've found just a few. This is the best, tiny columnals with one of the weird palaeocorynid fenestellid appendages (the radiating thing at the bottom).  

[Tidgy's Dad]

The palaeocorynid bit is a real bonus on this piece. 

[Fossildude19]

Lovely specimens, Tarquin! 

Thanks for posting them.  

[TqB]

1 hour ago, Fossildude19 said:

Lovely specimens, Tarquin! 

Thanks for posting them.  

Thanks, Tim. It was good to get out.