A lucky Devonian find

[connorp]

This past weekend I was able to hunt in the Middle Devonian Silica Shale in Ohio for a couple of hours. I found a lot of great things, but I think this took the cake for me. It was my first good find of the day, and the only specimen I've found in 5+ trips to this site. I don't have my Silica Shale book with me right now, but I believe it to be Hyperoblastus reimanni.

 

In situ

 

Cleaned up

[Neanderthal Shaman]

Very nice!

[t-tree]

Nice Blastoid you did well spotting it.

 

John

[ClearLake]

Very nice indeed!  I took a quick peek in Kesling and Chilman and I believe you have it correctly ID'd.  Were you at Paulding, any new material dumped there recently?  I'll be up that way in a month or so hopefully with an opportunity to stop there.  Thanks

[Misha]

That's awesome! Blastoids are really cool.

 

Did you pick up that beautiful Athyrid sitting to the right of it?

[connorp]

56 minutes ago, Misha said:

That's awesome! Blastoids are really cool.

 

Did you pick up that beautiful Athyrid sitting to the right of it?

I picked up a lot of nice brachs, but I think I missed that one!

 

1 hour ago, ClearLake said:

Very nice indeed!  I took a quick peek in Kesling and Chilman and I believe you have it correctly ID'd.  Were you at Paulding, any new material dumped there recently?  I'll be up that way in a month or so hopefully with an opportunity to stop there.  Thanks

Yes I was. I don't think anything new has been dumped for a while, but there's still plenty to find. Here's a couple of my other favorite finds.

 

I picked this up thinking it was a big horn coral, but I think now it is probably a cephalopod. Cephalopods don't seem to be very common here.

 

I found a lot of small fish bone fragments, but the best was this thick chunk of placoderm armor. I really love the blue coloring of the bones from here.

 

I also finally found a complete Eldredgeops from here. A little damage to the pygidium but I think it will prep out nicely otherwise.

Edited April 27, 2021 by connorp

[Misha]

6 minutes ago, connorp said:

I found a lot of small fish bone fragments, but the best was this thick chunk of placoderm armor. I really love the blue coloring of the bones from here.

Wow! I didn't know that fish parts were common in this formation, that's really cool. Do you know what genera or species are present there?

 

The blue coloration of the bones is also something quite interesting, it's actually present on quite a lot of Devonian fish fossils from around the world, I have material from Ukraine and Pennsylvania with similar color on them. I wonder what causes that

[connorp]

1 minute ago, Misha said:

Wow! I didn't know that fish parts were common in this formation, that's really cool. Do you know what genera or species are present there?

 

The blue coloration of the bones is also something quite interesting, it's actually present on quite a lot of Devonian fish fossils from around the world, I have material from Ukraine and Pennsylvania with similar color on them. I wonder what causes that

Well, common might be overstating it a bit, but now that I know what to look for, I walk away with a couple bone bits every trip. Most of what I've found are just indeterminate fragments. I will probably label the placoderm armor as Protitanichthys cf. rockportensis, although I think that's a bit of a wastebasket.

[Jackson g]

Nice finds. Wish I could go up there to Ohio to fossil hunt!

[Jeffrey P]

Nice finds, especially the blastoid. I haven't found a Devonian one yet. 

[aek]

Nice finds!

[dunk]

Hi there.

 

just a short note on your arthrodire plates from Indiana and Ohio. I worked on Protitanichthys years ago when I was at the Cleveland Museum. In collaboration with Robert Carr I wrote a draft paper on this artghrodire which we never published. Many specimens were assembled from various museums and private collectors came forward at the time to contribute relevant finds.

 

Dr. Carr and I have decided to rewrite our draft paper and include new material for publication.

 

The pieces you have collected are definitely of interest at least to view and discuss. At least we can help you ID individual pieces. My email is georgekamp@bell.net and I would be happy to share information with you.

 

George E Kampouris