Is this Rock made up of plant & animal fossils

[JSERTL]

Found these two rocks earlier in Big Creek by my place in Iron Co. MO. they look as though they are made up almost entirely of tiny plant & animal fossils. Each rock is about 6"x4"x2". 

[Manticocerasman]

defenitely some Bryozoan and crinoid fossils in there.

[Misha]

The first item looks like a holocephalian tooth plate to me

[Rockwood]

3 hours ago, JSERTL said:

tiny plant

Plant material being included is not impossible, but, with the exception of calcareous algae, it's quite unlikely. The respective environments which favor their preservation are usually in contrast. Crinoidal limestone is what this is commonly called. There is often a mixture of other vertebrate and invertebrate fossils included.

[grandpa]

16 hours ago, JSERTL said:

plant & animal fossils

Coincidentally, "bryozoan" literally means "moss animal".

[JSERTL]

It just looked like a ball of fossilized bits & pieces. And I noticed the crinoid cheerios right off the bat. But like someone else noticed, it's that first picture that interests me the most. I have like a thousand power digital microscope that also has a four and a half inch LCD screen on it. And when I zoom in really far it looks like I don't even know what to call it I'll post a picture sometime tonight or tomorrow. Thanks for all the info

[JSERTL]

Okay the second image does kinda resemble that of the holocephalian tooth   plate someone mentioned earlier (But that's solely based on my quick read through an article on it though s I wouldn't even call that an educated guess on my part lol).  Either way I was referring to the very first image with the dark textured piece. 

on another note, would this be a good piece to try and get some hands on at prep work by trying to uncover whatever is inside?

[Misha]

23 minutes ago, JSERTL said:

Okay the second image does kinda resemble that of the holocephalian tooth   plate someone mentioned earlier (But that's solely based on my quick read through an article on it though s I wouldn't even call that an educated guess on my part lol).  Either way I was referring to the very first image with the dark textured piece. 

on another note, would this be a good piece to try and get some hands on at prep work by trying to uncover whatever is inside?

I was referring to the first darker piece as the potential Holocephalian tooth. The second definitely isn't one, that's a bryozoan.

I think you'd want to start with something softer to prep, this limestone is probably pretty hard and would be challenging to prep.

 

Edited August 20, 2021 by Misha

[JSERTL]

I flint knapp various kinds of stone so I'm no stranger to work required to chipping away at hard stones from just knocking off chunks to work with to the delicate finishing touches. What I was referring to was that there's nothing of significance that will be forever lost if I screw up.

[JSERTL]

I just looked up bryozoan & in my defense the two images "kind of" look the same to an uneducated eye that is lol 

All all the pictures I've seen of the tooth plate showed it being white why would mine be dark reddish brown almost a dark Amber

[Misha]

The color of the fossils can range, an organism usually won't display one specific color in all instances of fossilization, it is more dependant on the conditions in which they were buried and the minerals that replace that fossil. These teeth can be white, black, brown and a lot of other colors. 

[JSERTL]

Okay and upon further and much closer inspection the whole top of this rock is just covered with hundreds probably thousands of these Cheerios. A lot of them are covered up by crystals of some sort, quartz I'm guessing. 

[Rockwood]

3 hours ago, JSERTL said:

What I was referring to was that there's nothing of significance that will be forever lost if I screw up.

One can never be certain that this won't happen. In general the philosophy is that it's better to find something to glue back together than never find it at all.

[Rockwood]

2 hours ago, JSERTL said:

quartz I'm guessing

It's possible for replacement by silicate material to happen during the formation of fossils, It most likely is the original calcium carbonate, which has been aged to a more stable crystalline form however. Calcite is likely.

[JSERTL]

Okay scratch that idea because there won't be anything to glue together. Everything you touch turns to a white powder. Any of the structures just crumble at the slightest touch. And those crystals that were talking about are like a network of inter twining Crystal formations following the shape of the structures that poke through but like I said you can't even touch those cuz they turn. powder. And since there won't be anything left to glue together of that dark object I'm just opting to leave it alone. Because it will probably get destroyed also. 

We have a large amount of dolomite in my area it's everywhere could that be what I'm seeing?

[JSERTL]

Here is just a couple pieces I knocked off since the slow approach was just pulverizing everything. And this approaches yielded much better results. Every piece looks like this it's just loaded from top to bottom

[Rockwood]

6 hours ago, JSERTL said:

. Any of the structures just crumble at the slightest touch.

Likely the result of weathering. It could be just less well cemented (natural), or solidly crystalized to begin with though. Limestone can go either way hard and tough or soft and friable.

[Tetradium]

On 8/20/2021 at 4:11 PM, JSERTL said:

Here is just a couple pieces I knocked off since the slow approach was just pulverizing everything. And this approaches yielded much better results. Every piece looks like this it's just loaded from top to bottom

Your piece had been exposed to the elements for a long time. I call it bleaching out. Unlike the others here I can see three different bryozoan species, two colonial coral species, pieces of one brachiopod species, 1 mold of a brachiopod/bivalve, crinoid. Your broken apart piece have one additional bryozoan species and a whole lot of some tiny brachiopod? bivalve? that probable eroded away. 

[Tetradium]

On 8/20/2021 at 4:11 PM, JSERTL said:

Here is just a couple pieces I knocked off since the slow approach was just pulverizing everything. And this approaches yielded much better results. Every piece looks like this it's just loaded from top to bottom

Your fossils are likely Silurian at the earlier for Paleozoic but can range through the rest of the Paleozoic era.  Fenestella type bryozoans don't really becomes significant till Silurian period. 

[connorp]

According to the USGS, Iron Co., MO is mostly Upper Cambrian dolomites with some Ordovician dolomites and metamorphic Precambrian units, so this rock was transported from elsewhere.

https://mrdata.usgs.gov/geology/state/fips-unit.php?code=f29093

 

This rock is almost certainly Mississippian in age. Mississippian rocks are very well exposed in Missouri and southern Illinois, and encrinite is a common rock type found in the Mississippian units. The dark red fossil in the first picture looks like a piece of bone rather than a tooth plate. It could be further exposed using a dilute acetic acid solution (i.e. white vinegar diluted with water), but I would suspect there is not much more to be seen.

[JSERTL]

Transported from elsewhere? The only way that could have happened is from our floods this little creek (Big Creek) didn't get its name for no reason. I'm finding all kinds of stuff inside this rock

 I'll try to get some better pictures but literally everywhere you look is just a piece of something else. 

[Lone Hunter]

A lot of rocks and gravels are trucked in from quarries to construction sites for roads, bridges and such. Used for fill rock and erosion control.

[JSERTL]

And I live right at the edge of one so I don't know why they would ship stuff in from somewhere else

[JSERTL]

The red marker in the upper left hand corner is where I found the Rock

[JSERTL]

But hey you guys are the experts not me I just like finding this stuff