Very odd find. Middle Devonian of western New York

[Al Tahan]

Hey everyone, 

 

been a little MIA recently. Work/life balance has gotten a little out of whack. Looking forward to sharing some of my 2021 finds soon!

 

anyway I’m revisiting this fossil I found in Western New York roughly 2 years ago. 
 

at first when I shared the find I asked some opinions and most said cephalopod. I knew it probably wasn’t that but I didn’t really explore it further. 
 

this is from the Wanakah shale of the ludlowville formation in the Hamilton group of WNY. Middle Devonian in age. 
 

this “seems” like a spine? I don’t really know. There are lines running perpendicular to what you would expect with a cephalopod.  
 

it’s a thick black calcite shelly material. Definitely was a “hard part” from an animal. But exactly what it may be…not sure. 
 

my tentative guess is a fish spine? Idk

I got some advice to tag @jdp i hope I tagged the correct member! 

 

what do you all think? 
 

Al

   

   

   

[Fossildude19]

It's a definite stumper, for me.  

[jdp]

Got any better pictures of the narrow end?

[Fossildude19]

Cropped and brightened:

 

[Al Tahan]

@jdp

 

It appears to come to a point but it was found heavily weathered (exposed on a pavement outcrop along the stream bed, spent time submerged)

 

the shape is still kinda there near the point but 0 details. All I can really say is it does taper to a point 

[RuMert]

Why not wood?

[Al Tahan]

11 minutes ago, RuMert said:

Why not wood?

Technically “wood” didn’t exist in the Devonian….usually calamites (looks like giant horsetail) and other plant debris are found in Devonian deposits….they also tend to preserve poor in general….no shelly material…..All the plant debris I’ve found in the Buffalo area are very carbonaceous (black) or just imprints. 
 

I suppose it’s possible it could be a plant but I’m skeptical because of how hearty the black shelly material is on this specimen…..plants just didn’t have that. 
 

looks like a hard part preservation made of calcite the same way you see a trilobite with a hard black shell. plants just didn’t have the right elemental composition to create this. 
 

 

[aplomado]

The image reminds me of Carboniferious plants I have seen.

[Al Tahan]

31 minutes ago, aplomado said:

The image reminds me of Carboniferious plants I have seen.

Those plants would definitely be black like this except the Carboniferous plants I’m aware of are carbonaceous and not shelly…..they don’t actually preserve the plant just the carbon. Think of it like coal….coal is all plant remains in a THICK interval, squished and preserved into thin “seams”. However the layer is so thick you can’t actually see details. 
 

 

many plant fossils are essentially a single super thin layer of coal left behind by a single plant remain on a bedding plane….many times the details come from the imprint left behind and variations in the Carbon film……should there have been an entire layer of plant remains and it got really thick, that’s how you get coal. 

 

for those reasons I am skeptical of it being a plant but I do see why it seems like a plant. I mean…..maybe it’s a really oddly preserved plant? 

 

 

[Fossildude19]

  

58 minutes ago, aplomado said:

The image reminds me of Carboniferious plants I have seen.

 

 

I have to agree with Al.  

 

Having come upon many plant fossils in the Hamilton group, they usually aren't preserved as more than thin carbonaceous films. 

This does look much thicker, to me. 
 

As Al said, it could be a different type of preservation, but this is definitely atypical preservation for plants in the Hamilton Group, as far as my experience allows.  

 

Maybe @piranha  will have some idea? 

 

 

[Al Tahan]

Ok so I just “phoned a friend” (who wants to be a millionaire reference ha)

 

this may be a cephalopod. I guess there is indeed one that has striations going long ways down the shell. Just need to find a source with this to 100% confirm 

[westcoast]

I could see this as acanthodian spine...

[Fossildude19]

14 hours ago, Al Tahan said:

Ok so I just “phoned a friend” (who wants to be a millionaire reference ha)

this may be a cephalopod. I guess there is indeed one that has striations going long ways down the shell. Just need to find a source with this to 100% confirm 

 

The only one I know of is Spyroceras, and the striations are much smaller, and are separated by the chambers. 

 

[Al Tahan]

@Fossildude19

 

yea I can’t seem to find anything at all either…..ugh. 
 

I’ve been trying to just find some type of orthocone with different striations and I’ve struggled. I honestly just don’t have the resources. Research gate is amazing but I cannot access it . 

Bummer 

[cngodles]

For plant leaves, yes, if it’s a thin leaf preserved horizontal in sediment, it will be mostly carbon. But calamites and others can be thicker in cross section depending on how it was buried and how much woody material was in there. This root I found (305 MYA-ish) was very dimensional.

 

 

[piranha]

Here is the reply from a specialist friend that works on the Devonian plants of New York:

 

 

It’s difficult to say just what this might be, although it is quite interesting!

 

There appears to be taper toward one end with this part of the specimen still within some matrix. This is a good thing as preservation may be more complete here and the specimen might be carefully uncovered with needle work. If there’s pyrite here, then the possibility exists that anatomy is still preserved. The latter would probably be the the most direct way to identify it.

 

From what I can see, it’s not clear whether the other end consists of a single thing or a composite of several smaller elements closely appressed to each other. If the latter, there may be a single central longitudinal strand in each element to which the name Taeniocrada might be applied. As of yet, no one is quite sure what this name may mean botanically speaking. There’s so much left to learn!

[RandyB]

@Al Tahan any luck with a positive ID on this find?

[Al Tahan]

On 9/11/2021 at 2:14 PM, RandyB said:

@Al Tahan any luck with a positive ID on this find?

I think so! Finally….

 

I was at the Denver museum of nature and science a couple months back on a trip Colorado with my wife and saw this diagram….

 

In the area where they had some amazing Paleozoic displays I saw a diagram of this cephalopod with vertical striations. Kionoceras cancellatum….maybe that’s what I found…could be the same genus at least? 
 

 

Here’s a diagram I took from the Milwaukee field museum website I found it after I googled “Kionoceras cancellatum” as the keywords. 
 

 

Another example from the dreaded Wikipedia but it did offer another example of a Kionoceras of another species. 
 

 

My only gripe is my specimen is kinda terrible so it’s a little hard to fully compare…..it isn’t really 3D or rounded in a way to help support the Kionoceras thought….. but a flattened orthocone is pretty common I would say. 
 

well that’s all I got…..anyone have any thoughts…opinions?