Petrified Flame Sponge?

[MarcoSr]

Have you ever heard of Petrified Flame Sponge from Wyoming?  I just bought (in the mail) the below piece because I want to look at it under a microscope and I think I can take some interesting pictures of it.  It is supposed to be from the White River Formation in Wyoming.  See the below cards with it.  Marine from the White River Formation doesn’t make sense to me.  Fluvial would, but not for sponges.  Tsunami in Wyoming also doesn’t make sense.  Reworked from older Formation?  Ideas on what this is?  Just a name for a type of agate?

 

Petrified Flame Sponge Slab, Late Eocene/Early Oligocene White River Formation, Wyoming (66 grams 3.5 inches x 6.2 mm thick):

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marco Sr.

[Mark Kmiecik]

First they say it's a sponge, then they say it's a trace fossil. I'm confused.

[jpc]

l noticed that too.  Make up my mind, will ya? I think this is some kind of marketing move.  The label also calls it a 'prairie agate'.  There is tons of that stuff in the White River, but I have never seen it labeled as anything even remotely sponge-oid.  

[MarcoSr]

1 hour ago, Mark Kmiecik said:

First they say it's a sponge, then they say it's a trace fossil. I'm confused.

 

54 minutes ago, jpc said:

l noticed that too.  Make up my mind, will ya? I think this is some kind of marketing move.  The label also calls it a 'prairie agate'.  There is tons of that stuff in the White River, but I have never seen it labeled as anything even remotely sponge-oid.  

 

I agree that the labels really don't make any sense.  However, I see a lot of different types of agate, and the pattern on this piece seems pretty unusual.  The few sponge fossils that I have show a distinct micro pillar like structure.  I'm looking forward to getting this piece and looking for any structure under a microscope.

 

Marco Sr.

[Mark Kmiecik]

52 minutes ago, MarcoSr said:

I'm looking forward to getting this piece and looking for any structure under a microscope.

 

And let us know the results -- this is quite interesting! Thanks for sharing.

[Sjfriend]

It reminds me of a plume agate thats been cut at an angle to the layering It is definitely a beautiful piece. Can't wait to see your macro photos!

[MarcoSr]

6 hours ago, Sjfriend said:

It reminds me of a plume agate thats been cut at an angle to the layering It is definitely a beautiful piece. Can't wait to see your macro photos!

 

Here is another interesting, really colorful piece (116g 4 inches) of petrified flame sponge that the seller has for sale.  This piece is not polished and is photographed wet.  I almost bought this piece also, but I can only hand polish and that is a long, tedious process for me.

 

 

 

 

Marco Sr.

[Sjfriend]

2 hours ago, MarcoSr said:

 

Here is another interesting, really colorful piece (116g 4 inches) of petrified flame sponge that the seller has for sale.  This piece is not polished and is photographed wet.  I almost bought this piece also, but I can only hand polish and that is a long, tedious process for me.

 

 

 

 

Marco Sr.

Wow. That really looks interesting. I do like the pattering in the one you got more but the color on this one!!

[MarcoSr]

I was able to get some more information on petrified flame sponge.

 

The seller told me in a message that “This agate is unique to a specific area in Wyoming and parts of South Dakota” and pointed me to a Wyoming rockhounder group on FB.

 

In this group, I found a collector who claimed he and a friend originally discovered this type of agate.  Below is what he told me about it in two FB PMs.

 

“There isn't anything published on it. This was a discovery by me and a friend. He had them looked at while he was in Tucson and they said it was a salt water based fossil somehow by the arrangement of the Quartz crystals. I have seen thousands of these and many can be compared to living Sponges today. There are also Petrified Brain Coral in the deposit showing a catastrophic burial of a marine environment at sometime in the past. “

 

“Yes the Sponges probably come from an old Phosphoria layer but we haven't found them in situ anywhere yet. Some near close examples have been found near Limestone Mountain. Before they are found loose in the desert they come out of a tightly packed conglomerate mixed with vulcanized sands in uplifted ledges. They do have quite a story behind them from creation to a desert deposit though. I also believe that they were formed in 2 parts. First the horizontal line like a cake happened and then they were re boiled in a second event similar to Limb cast materials. Except these plumed to give them their Flame. “

 

So it sounds like the White River Formation doesn’t completely tell the story of these agates and may actually be irrelevant to their forming.

 

I received the piece yesterday and took a good number of pictures with my digital microscope camera.  I could see lots of pattern detail on my 20” monitor screen, but because most of the piece is very light in color, that detail isn’t easy to see in the below pictures.

 

These two pictures show a little of the “horizontal line like a cake” that the piece collector talked about in his message to me:

 

 

 

 

 

I could see lots of patterns that were typical patterns that I see in agate.  In the first picture the pattern is much more obvious in a small orange area of the piece.  Later pictures show patterns in the lighter areas of the piece that are harder to see in the pictures.  Some of the pictures remind me of lace agate and also of plume agate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, there is a background pattern in a lot of the pictures, especially in those that follow, that I’m not really sure of.  It could just be a plume pattern, but looks different from the normal plume patterns that I see.  These patterns also remind me of the pillar patterns that I’ve seen in the few fossil sponges that I have.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The below pictures show a fossil sponge slab that has the pillar pattern that I’m talking about.

 

Stromatoporoid Sheet Sponge, Vertical Colony Section, Upper Ordovician, Ashlock Formation, Garrard County, Kentucky (529 grams  5.25x3.25 x1.25 max inches):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, based upon what I’m seeing in the pictures, I can’t confirm an agate sponge fossil slab.  If you see something or don’t see something that helps you make a determination, please chime in.

Marco Sr.

[Sjfriend]

Still say "beautiful"

 

I see what your talking about. There does appear to be something buried in there. But I definitely can't say it is sponge based I would want a geologist to take a good look before I started claiming that.