Fossil Algae?

[citrine.colubrid]

I've got this big hash plate that I collected last year and I somehow didn't notice this thing poking out until now. It looks like an algae to me. Found in SW Wisconsin in the platteville formation.

 

 

Edited January 20, 2021 by citrine.colubrid
formatting

[citrine.colubrid]

[DPS Ammonite]

It is a bryozoan.

[KCMOfossil]

+1 for  bryozoan

[citrine.colubrid]

Yeah, you're probably right. I didn't think bryozoan because it's different from the ones I usually find. Thanks, though

[Kato]

4 hours ago, DPS Ammonite said:

It is a bryozoan.

@DPS Ammonite  I have never seen algae in our Mississippian, Devonian or older formations. Maybe I have and simply don't recognize it when I see it. My presumption is that algae is more of a shallower water phenomena?

 

Are the algae from the Devonian more individualized and less clumped up than this phylloid algae from the Pennsylvanian I find locally?

 

 

[DPS Ammonite]

24 minutes ago, Kato said:

@DPS Ammonite  I have never seen algae in our Mississippian, Devonian or older formations. Maybe I have and simply don't recognize it when I see it. My presumption is that algae is more of a shallower water phenomena?

Are the algae from the Devonian more individualized and less clumped up than this phylloid algae from the Pennsylvanian I find locally?

I am by no means very expert on fossil algae. I have collected phylloid algae at Jacksboro, Texas and Cretaceous Porocystis near Glen Rose, Texas. I have not yet found any algae in the Pennsylvanian rocks in Arizona.

[Kato]

8 minutes ago, DPS Ammonite said:

I am by no means very expert on fossil algae. I have collected phylloid algae at Jacksboro, Texas and Cretaceous Porocystis near Glen Rose, Texas. I have not yet found any algae in the Pennsylvanian rocks in Arizona.

@DPS Ammonite Thank you. Locally, research discusses phylloid algal formations primarily in the youngest portion (Pennsylvanian Holder) and a solitary finding in the middle Pennsylvanian Beeman (have found it 2 places) . I have also found multiple locations in the oldest formation Pennsylvanian Gobbler of which no papers make mention.

 

I would think our ocean was the same at that time or was there a range between us?

 

I can find no mention for anything Mississippian and older.  Quick glances online only seems to reveal Ordovician algae fossils as isolated and not matted like this packstone

[DPS Ammonite]

The Desmoinian/Moscovian Middle Pennsylvanian Naco Formation in Arizona has many of the same species of fossils as those in New Mexico. I sort of assumed that it was the same ocean that created some of the Pennsylvanian formations in NM. I have even seen at least one sponge posted on the Forum that is common to both states: Chaunactis olsoni.

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/collections-database/sponges/sponge-r1572/

Have you found any Pennsylvanian (or other age) sponges in NM?

 

Check out my Arizona Paleontology Guide that may be helpful for the neighboring states:

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/86597-arizona-paleontology-guide/

 

[Kato]

8 hours ago, DPS Ammonite said:

The Desmoinian/Moscovian Middle Pennsylvanian Naco Formation in Arizona has many of the same species of fossils as those in New Mexico. I sort of assumed that it was the same ocean that created some of the Pennsylvanian formations in NM. I have even seen at least one sponge posted on the Forum that is common to both states: Chaunactis olsoni.

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/collections-database/sponges/sponge-r1572/

Have you found any Pennsylvanian (or other age) sponges in NM?

 

Check out my Arizona Paleontology Guide that may be helpful for the neighboring states:

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/86597-arizona-paleontology-guide/

 

@DPS Ammonite The only sponge-like object I've found to date is one you helped me identify in a trip report written and posted last weekend. Here was your comment

 

'Consider a Haplistion species such as sphaericum from the Desmoinian in New Mexico. '

 

 

until then the closest I had come to finding a sponge was two separate formations with one bearing sponge spicules and another with these possible corals. Both also in the Desmoinsian but lower formations