Mushroom Fossil?

[abstractcrackpot]

As a child I collected rocks. Recently I dug my old collection out of storage, which I haven't looked at since childhood. I found this specimen in the box. I must have found it somewhere in Ontario, Canada in the early 1990s. Any idea what it is?

 

 

[non-remanié]

wow! thats gotta be from the eightbitocene

Edited December 14, 2010 by toothpuller

[abstractcrackpot]

wow! thats gotta be from the eightbitocene

What do you mean? It's not a joke. I have no idea what it is and simply found it in a box of rocks I collected as a child. I just want to know what it is- fake, real, coral, mushroom, worm, weirdly eroded rock- whatever it may be.

[Ludwigia]

That's a hard nut to crack.... Sponge?

[piranha]

Looks like a nice mushroom shaped sponge to me also. I have a similar fossil to yours that measures about 13 mm at the widest diameter. The label identifies it as the Jurassic sponge Leiodrella. After trying to verify it in the treatise volume of Porifera it does not match at all. By coincidence it does appear however to be a very close match to the Triassic sponge Leiospongia described from Italy and Timor. Suffice it to say I can't say what the genus is with any confidence. For now I'll just have to call it Leiospongia(?). I wish I could offer a reasonable guess on yours other than to just call it a fossil sponge from Canada. Maybe some of our members from Canada are familiar with your fossil and can lend their expertise.

Thanks again for posting the great photos - we appreciate it!

Edited December 14, 2010 by piranha

[MOROPUS]

It looks more to some old and mineralize lead man made artifact...Civil War object?

[abstractcrackpot]

Thanks everyone. Any more ideas?

PS. How come a sponge can make a fossil but a mushroom can't? (I did some research and saw mushroom fossils were rare.) Aren't they both soft organisms?

[Xiphactinus]

Thanks everyone. Any more ideas?

PS. How come a sponge can make a fossil but a mushroom can't? (I did some research and saw mushroom fossils were rare.) Aren't they both soft organisms?

The main reason is that sponges often have mineralized spiracules (sp?) in them that help facilitate preservation. Also, sponges are in a marine environment which is more conducive to fossilization than mushrooms which are on land -- typically in an acidic environment.

It sure looks like you have a spent bullet. Can you scratch an inconspicuous area with a knife? I bet you get a shiny scratch.

[Wrangellian]

The main reason is that sponges often have mineralized spiracules (sp?) in them that help facilitate preservation. Also, sponges are in a marine environment which is more conducive to fossilization than mushrooms which are on land -- typically in an acidic environment.

It sure looks like you have a spent bullet. Can you scratch an inconspicuous area with a knife? I bet you get a shiny scratch.

Spicules

[Xiphactinus]

Spicules

thanks - that's the ticket

[jpc]

I'm gonna vote ona spent bullet that caved inon itself on impact. These things can be otugh to tell with just photos.

[darrow]

I don't have much experience with fossil mushrooms or fossil anything for that matter, but I have handled thousands of spent rifle and pistol projectiles and I'm pretty sure its neither one.

darrow

Edited December 15, 2010 by darrow

[Cole]

Makes a lot of sense to me Inyo. I would suggest some clearer, more zoomed in pictures. We might be able to get a better sense of what is incrusting this thing.

[Cole]

I am also thinking, some type of native artifact. Not exactly sure what the use of something like this could have been. But it seems like a small ceramic pinch-pot of sorts that could have been a smoker for something like incense or tobacco. Perhaps even just an ornamental decoration like a trinket or an object that hung from a necklace. Just thoughts

Cole~

[piranha]

Well...I just rechecked my geologic map of Ontario, Canada, where you say your specimen most likely came from. Based on my understanding of Mesozoic-age geology of Canada, there are no marine Triassic Period rocks in Ontario--and very little, if any, Mesozoic sedimentary rocks to speak of, to begin with--and what sedimentary Mesozoic material does exist there is completely terrestrial (land-laid). The explanation is that that part of Canada during the Mesozoic was left "high and dry," within the interior of a massive continent, subject to terrestrial erosion, not marine deposition.

Therefore, the speculated identification of the "mushroom" sponge Leiospongia as suggested elsewhere in this thread, is just not correct, in my view. Leiospongia was an exclusively marine Triassic sponge, by the way. Too, an alternate idea that it might be a non-marine variety of sponge can be dismissed out of hand.

But wait--perhaps, I began to ruminate, might said "mushroom" or some other kind of Triassic sponge have been carried in as a "stray" (a small glacial erratic, as it were) by glacial activities during Pleistocene Ice Age times? So, I went ahead and researched geologic maps of Canada's provinces to try to locate possible sources for marine sedimentary Triassic-age rocks in Canada.

No such rocks could I locate in the provinces anywhere surrounding Ontario, or in any other Canadian province, for that matter--expcept for the westernmost provinces of British Columbia and the Yukon Territory (adjacent to Alaska), where well-known outcrops of Triassic sedimentary marine material can be found. That's hundreds and hundreds of miles west of Ontario, and glacial activity did not involve a west to eastward march. It's safe to say, one must conclude, that your mystery specimen is not a "mushroom" Leiospongia sponge, or any other kind of Triassic sponge, if it indeed came from Ontario or any other central (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta) to northern (Nanunavut, Northwest Territory) to northeast (Quebec, Newfoundland-Labrador) to eastern (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia) Canadian province.

And it goes without saying, of course, that I have never heard of Leiospongia having been found in either British Columbia or Yukon Territory. Ergo, I do not believe that your specimen is a Leiospongia, or any other kind of Triassic sponge, based on the exclusive distribution of marine sedimentary Triassic rocks in westernmost Canada, hundreds and hundreds of miles from Ontario, in the eastern sector of Canada, where glaciation could not have possibly brought such a marine Triassic invertebrate fossil there.

So, what in the world is it? Not sure, exactly. I can't even be sure that it's a fossil, actually. Could be either man-made, or inorganic rock. Without examining it by hand, it's pretty much impractical for me to speculate on its origin at this time.

http://inyo.110mb.com/beatty/beattyfossils.html

My page, "Ordovician Fossils At The Great Beatty Mudmound, Nevada."

Looks like a nice mushroom shaped sponge to me also. I have a similar fossil to yours that measures about 13 mm at the widest diameter. The label identifies it as the Jurassic sponge Leiodrella. After trying to verify it in the treatise volume of Porifera it does not match at all. By coincidence it does appear however to be a very close match to the Triassic sponge Leiospongia described from Italy and Timor. Suffice it to say I can't say what the genus is with any confidence. For now I'll just have to call it Leiospongia(?). I wish I could offer a reasonable guess on yours other than to just call it a fossil sponge from Canada. Maybe some of our members from Canada are familiar with your fossil and can lend their expertise.

Thanks again for posting the great photos - we appreciate it!

Inyo, I think you may have inadvertently misinterpreted my comment. I merely speculated as to the attributions of the fossil I posted for point of reference. I'm not inclined to post a photo without description even if it's speculative at best. I did summarize quite succinctly (I think) that the best guess I was comfortable making, would be to call his specimen a fossil sponge from Canada and did defer to those more qualified than myself to offer their expert opinion. It was never my intent to conflate my sponge Leiospongia with the specimen in question. I'd like to add this clearer point of distinction; of similar affinities to the fossil sponge I've posted for sake of comparison. I believe I have now qualified the former and the latter in this case. Thanks Inyo for the excellent information on the geological horizons of Canada and your other fine contributions here at TFF.

[paleozoicfish]

Inyo, I think you may have inadvertently misinterpreted my comment. I merely speculated as to the attributions of the fossil I posted for point of reference. I'm not inclined to post a photo without description even if it's speculative at best. I did summarize quite succinctly (I think) that the best guess I was comfortable making, would be to call his specimen a fossil sponge from Canada and did defer to those more qualified than myself to offer their expert opinion. It was never my intent to conflate my sponge Leiospongia with the specimen in question. I'd like to add this clearer point of distinction; of similar affinities to the fossil sponge I've posted for sake of comparison. I believe I have now qualified the former and the latter in this case. Thanks Inyo for the excellent information on the geological horizons of Canada and your other fine contributions here at TFF.

I think Inyo did not read your post carefully. I completely followed what you were saying that it appears to be a sponge based on the morphological characteristics seen in the sponge in your collection.

Let's make sure we understand a post before we criticize it.

-PzF

[tracer]

ok, ok, hold yer equuses! teh xifact, ixphanict, teh XMAN guy ast before if dis thing cuold be a lead bullet thingee type, and so owner person, does it feel heavy like lead or what, cuz that one flange lip part looks bent over against the vertical circulation core (jusdt made up dat last name)? old lead stuck out in teh natural nature gets all funkitated looking like dat sort of, so i was wondering if it could be some weird fishing weight or a compression stopper from a macroscopic frizwidget. so like, can you affirm or deny teh metalliconocity of it before we further embed ourselves in teh throes of cogitation? i mean, no offense to spiculous sponges but dere's some stuff about this thing that has me thinking that could be barkin' up teh wrong bison.

life's a metaphor.

shame i got tuned as a metafive.

[Coco]

Tracer, please feel sorry (understand us !) for foreigners who try to understand you when you write! Even the automatic translators do not manage to give us an idea of what you want to say !

Coco

[RickNC]

Tracer, please feel sorry (understand us !) for foreigners who try to understand you when you write! Even the automatic translators do not manage to give us an idea of what you want to say !

Coco

Don't worry. I can't even understand that! I think the object is really interesting whatever it may be.

[tracer]

Tracer, please feel sorry (understand us !) for foreigners who try to understand you when you write! Even the automatic translators do not manage to give us an idea of what you want to say !

Coco

My dear Coco -

Tracer is sleeping late today because last night he was fighting with his pillow for hours. I could hear it all over the house. I believe the pillow won. At any rate, your attempts to understand him seem hopeless unless you can find a "weirdness translator". I doubt that one exists, but you never know, since I was able to find one that translates perfectly various inflections on "meow" into plain English.

Best Regards,

Tracer's Cat

[Coco]

Hi,

My dear Tracer's Cat,

Thank you for the effort which you supply, you write much better that your master ! Henceforth, when Tracer will want to write on TFF, I hope that he will appeal to your genius !

Coco

[Wrangellian]

This forum sure is fun. Great entertainment.

Eric

[Mr. Edonihce]

so, is the OP gonna respond?.......is it metal.....can you scratch it and see what happens?