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Ediacaran Fossil: Macrofossil...


pleecan

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On a Ediacaran plate containing Nemiana simplex from Nowodniestrowsk Ukraine, contains carbonized filamentous fossil... looks like algae?

Imaged with Sigma SD10, 1.4X Apo Barlow + Bellows+ reverse mounted F1.8 50mm Pentacon lens (copy of Zeiss design) with a polarizer

post-2446-0-67586000-1307919368_thumb.jpg

Thoughts any one?

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A bit of a puzzler :blink:

Doesn't look like algae I've seen before, but then again my experience with algae is limited.

What a wonderful menagerie! Who would believe that such as register lay buried in the strata? To open the leaves, to unroll the papyrus, has been an intensely interesting though difficult work, having all the excitement and marvelous development of a romance. And yet the volume is only partly read. Many a new page I fancy will yet be opened. -- Edward Hitchcock, 1858

Formerly known on the forum as Crimsonraptor

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It is a film of some kind, and if it's not spilled paint or something, a biofilm of some kind is as good a guess as any, since it doesn't really look like a mineral deposit.

"There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant

“Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley

>Paleontology is an evolving science.

>May your wonders never cease!

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A bit of a puzzler :blink:

Doesn't look like algae I've seen before, but then again my experience with algae is limited.

Actually they remind me of micro algae found in devonian black oil shale deposits in the Kettle Point Formation....

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It is a film of some kind, and if it's not spilled paint or something, a biofilm of some kind is as good a guess as any, since it doesn't really look like a mineral deposit.

I think it is some sort of organic biomat..... pre Cambrian material is so interesting to look at....

PL

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It is a film of some kind, and if it's not spilled paint or something, a biofilm of some kind is as good a guess as any, since it doesn't really look like a mineral deposit.

I don't know, I think it actually does look like a mineral deposit. We have a lot of Pre-Cambrian rock here in Colorado, and I must have seen this somewhere before.

Perhaps we have more sedimentary stuff jumbled up in the granite than I realized. I mean, I know the difference between igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rock, and I'm usually pretty sure what we're usually in wherever we go throughout the state, but who knows.....if this stuff actually does turn out to be of some biological origin, I will be very interested.

.

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"Being genetically cursed with an almost inhuman sense of curiosity and wonder, I'm hard-wired to investigate even the most unlikely, uninteresting (to others anyway) and irrelevant details; often asking hypothetical questions from many angles in an attempt to understand something more thoroughly."

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Looks like a Rorschach test to me :wacko: Dark spots on rocks are quite common, without sophisticated testing you can't tell if it is a mineral deposit or a biofilm. Even if it is carbon, when was that carbon laid down? Bacteria can live on rocks, in rocks and around rocks even miles deep.

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I don't think they are bacteria as the objects can be seen with the naked eye as squiggly lines... the red and green lines drawn is what I think are organized trace structures of some type.... distinct from the random chaos of blobs and lines and stuff... there is structure there.....

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Bilateral symmetry:

post-2446-0-84501400-1308131138_thumb.jpg

post-2446-0-83807100-1308131168_thumb.jpg

Bilateral symmetry?

I suppose it is completely possible that my eyes are getting bad in my old age, but it just so happens to be that I'm the one among my paleo buddies that always finds the tiniest things.

Sorry, but I just don't see it.

I don't think they are bacteria as the objects can be seen with the naked eye as squiggly lines... the red and green lines drawn is what I think are organized trace structures of some type.... distinct from the random chaos of blobs and lines and stuff... there is structure there.....

^^^^^^ Is there a 'Post Of The Month' award around here?

If so, I motion to add this one into the batch for consideration.

If not, I motion to start one, and use this as the example post for the contest.....of course, you will need to provide a link to this thread so that the post is seen in context.

.

____________________

scale in avatar is millimeters

____________________

Come visit Sandi, the 'Fossil Journey Cruiser'

____________________

WIPS (the Western Interior Paleontological Society - http://www.westernpaleo.org)

____________________

"Being genetically cursed with an almost inhuman sense of curiosity and wonder, I'm hard-wired to investigate even the most unlikely, uninteresting (to others anyway) and irrelevant details; often asking hypothetical questions from many angles in an attempt to understand something more thoroughly."

-- Mr. Edonihce

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Bilateral symmetry?

I suppose it is completely possible that my eyes are getting bad in my old age, but it just so happens to be that I'm the one among my paleo buddies that always finds the tiniest things.

Sorry, but I just don't see it.

^^^^^^ Is there a 'Post Of The Month' award around here?

If so, I motion to add this one into the batch for consideration.

If not, I motion to start one, and use this as the example post for the contest.....of course, you will need to provide a link to this thread so that the post is seen in context.

Thanks for the honourary nomination..... :D I find these fossil fascinating to study. I am not even sure what I am looking at.... here are a few more pics at even higher resolution and Helicon processed images on my latest optic configuration which employs an inverted Wild M40 microscope stand to support the specimen with precision vertical axis micro movements .

label11-06-16_060354_MB_R5_S2.jpg

label11-06-16_060659_MB_R5_S2.jpg

PL

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Very interesting peice indeed!

The idea of algae does seem possible, but is there the chance that it could be some sort of mineral?

-Shamus

The Ordovician enthusiast.

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Hi Shamus:

All fossils are mineralized to some degree... if you look carefully there is some degree of ordered complexity of biological origin.... the stringy stuff could be the tenticles of Nemiana simplex ( looks kind of like a floppy jelly fish)... having fun with this fossil..

Peter

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Ah! That does give a new perspective!

Before, in the last pictures i saw a blueish object... i thought that was a mineral formation.

But your right, it deffinatly could be a mineralized fossil!

-Shamus

The Ordovician enthusiast.

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Thanks for the honourary nomination..... :D I find these fossil fascinating to study. I am not even sure what I am looking at.... here are a few more pics at even higher resolution and Helicon processed images on my latest optic configuration which employs an inverted Wild M40 microscope stand to support the specimen with precision vertical axis micro movements .

label11-06-16_060354_MB_R5_S2.jpg

label11-06-16_060659_MB_R5_S2.jpg

PL

Hi Shamus:

All fossils are mineralized to some degree... if you look carefully there is some degree of ordered complexity of biological origin.... the stringy stuff could be the tenticles of Nemiana simplex ( looks kind of like a floppy jelly fish)... having fun with this fossil..

Peter

Geez....I really hope it's not me, but I just don't see anything biological going on there. I just see red lines pointing to different pieces and parts of the variously jumbled mess of blips and globs and splats of darkness.

I totally accept that it could just be me not understanding something though. Could you draw outlines of what you're looking at, and post up some other images of known organisms that match what you're thinking of?

.

____________________

scale in avatar is millimeters

____________________

Come visit Sandi, the 'Fossil Journey Cruiser'

____________________

WIPS (the Western Interior Paleontological Society - http://www.westernpaleo.org)

____________________

"Being genetically cursed with an almost inhuman sense of curiosity and wonder, I'm hard-wired to investigate even the most unlikely, uninteresting (to others anyway) and irrelevant details; often asking hypothetical questions from many angles in an attempt to understand something more thoroughly."

-- Mr. Edonihce

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