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Marine Trace Fossil?


Ramona

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My son found this in Lost Creek in Russellville, Alabama. I am assuming it is a marine trace fossil but someone locally had another idea that is so far fetched I won't even mention it here, LOL.  I figured I would check with the experts to see if they agreed with the simple explanation first. 

Thanks!
Ramona

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I think that is a reasonable idea.  Mollusc maybe?

'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'

George Santayana

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2 hours ago, Rockwood said:

The name of it aside, what behavior would this represent ?

Good question!  I look forward to hearing any answers others can provide!

Thanks!
Ramona

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1 minute ago, Plax said:

We need an ichnologist

OK, I actually googled that because I had never heard the term before!  Where in the world do you find those folks? Any on here?

Ramona

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Just now, Ramona said:

OK, I actually googled that because I had never heard the term before!  Where in the world do you find those folks? Any on here?

Ramona

someone will come along hopefully. Meanwhile you can google "ichnotaxa" and see what you get

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2 hours ago, Rockwood said:

The name of it aside, what behavior would this represent ?

 

Roaming aimlessly? :) But seriously, might it be an impression as opposed to a track?

 

 

Mark.

 

Fossil hunting is easy -- they don't run away when you shoot at them!

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4 minutes ago, Mark Kmiecik said:

Roaming aimlessly?

Doesn't look right to me. They tend to move in a more directed manner, and in small increments that are slightly expressed in the trace.

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Something like Planolites, or Fodichnia - feeding/farming trace from an invertebrate.

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    Tim    VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER

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This is very interesting!  I love learning from you guys.  I will go ahead and share the "far out" opinion of one person on a Facebook group.  Can we post links here? He thought it was an octopus and I have a link to a page describing a well preserved octopus fossil, but I didn't even consider it a real option. I will post the link if that is allowed, though. I don't even think there were octopuses around here, were there?!  

Thanks!

Ramona

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2 hours ago, Plax said:

someone will come along hopefully. Meanwhile you can google "ichnotaxa" and see what you get

Thanks!  That was very interesting!  

Ramona

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13 hours ago, Rockwood said:

@abyssunder sometimes has an opinion on these. 

Thank you Dale.

I think Tim is right with the ID. Specimen looks close to Planolites.

 

"Planolites is interpreted as feeding burrows (fodinichnia) of deposit-feeders (Pemberton and Frey, 1982), and ranges in age from Cambrian to Holocene (Häntzschel, 1975; Mángano and Buatois, 2014). Planolites is found in almost every depositional environment (Pemberton and Frey, 1982)"...

"

Unlined, rarely branched, straight or tortuous, smooth surface, irregular or annulated, circular or elliptical in cross-section, of variable dimensions and configuration; homogeneous, structureless in fillings of burrows, differing in lithology from the host rock (Pemberton and Frey, 1982; Stanley and Pickerill,1998)."...

”fills typically differ in color from surrounding sediments."...

"Burrow fills are structureless, except for comparatively rare, poorly developed bacfills, and consist of sediments lithologically different from the host matrix. Preserved as endichnia, hypichnial ridges and epichnial grooves."

Edited by abyssunder
Correction in text
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16 hours ago, Rockwood said:

The name of it aside, what behavior would this represent ?

Perhaps something akin to snail trails/furrows, like these, but the positive, not the negative:

Copy_of_Mud_snail1.jpeg

19977006-caracol-de-mar-haciendo-camino-a-través-de-la-arena-en-la-playa.jpeg

Edited by hemipristis
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'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'

George Santayana

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11 hours ago, Rockwood said:

I think for this to be an octopus would require suckers. :)

:D

 

13 hours ago, Mark Kmiecik said:

 

Roaming aimlessly? 

 

snails get bored, too. :P

 

 

 

 

Edited by hemipristis
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'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'

George Santayana

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1 hour ago, hemipristis said:

snails get bored, too

Snail. Ya, they do.

I sort of forgot they are molluscs too. I was thinking bivalve.

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It's extremely difficult to name the makers precisely or the behavior exhibited without finding the maker along with the traces.  :shrug:
Modern equivalents are as close as we can get, but sometimes, just the ichnotaxon is all we can provide.

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    Tim    VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER

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3 hours ago, Plax said:

Have seen trails like this in sand accompanied by freshwater clams (locally called mussels) in the river.

This makes perfect sense!  In fact, my son had a mussel shell sitting on the table next to this rock when I went to visit him!  I just never think about those type of creatures moving around like that, but I guess they gotta move somehow!  

Thanks!  I will share this information with him!
Ramona

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29 minutes ago, Fossildude19 said:

It's extremely difficult to name the makers precisely or the behavior exhibited without finding the maker along with the traces.  :shrug:
Modern equivalents are as close as we can get, but sometimes, just the ichnotaxon is all we can provide.

I suspect seeing a recent mussel shell next to it helps, right?  ;-)

Thanks!

Ramona

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12 hours ago, hemipristis said:

Perhaps something akin to snail trails/furrows, like these, but the positive, not the negative:

Copy_of_Mud_snail1.jpeg

19977006-caracol-de-mar-haciendo-camino-a-través-de-la-arena-en-la-playa.jpeg

 

This kind of traces could be assigned to Scolicia

"Scolicia de Quartrefages, 1849 is a parataxon of ichnofossils present in sedimentary rocks of marine, marginal lacustrine, alluvial, or fluvial facies. These fossil traces appear in a wide geological range, from the Cambrian to the present. [1] " 

I would exclude the possibility of O.P.'s specimen beeing Scolicia because there are not two parallel stripes (with or without transversal ribs) and the central longitudinal channel between them.

 

"when the transverse ribbing is not very clear, it is used for the positive impression (epirelief) the term Palaeobullia and for the negative impression (hyporelief) the term Subphyllochorda." - Wikipedia

"When these traces do not have the transverse ribbing their realization is usually assigned to members of various groups of gastropods and crustaceans." - Wikipedia

 

1534186328_images(2).jpeg.5237ad01d4bd1c3eec3ab3e4d0f209b1.jpeg

 

 

Edited by abyssunder
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" We are not separate and independent entities, but like links in a chain, and we could not by any means be what we are without those who went before us and showed us the way. "

Thomas Mann

My Library

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3 hours ago, Ramona said:

I suspect seeing a recent mussel shell next to it helps, right?  ;-)

Thanks!

Ramona

In the fossil sense one can be 'dead' certain with a type of trace known as mortichnia. Dead in its tracks, so to speak. 

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