Some Of My Fossils

[Stevie Ray]

I am new to the site and must say you guys have some fantastic fossils. I mostly collect Indian artifacts, but also pick up any fossils I happen to see while i'm out hunting. I also picked up a bunch of things when I was a young kid and liveed in the Dayton, Ohio area. I don't have anything really large or extremely rare, but I do have a few fairly nice pieces. Here are some pics and you guys can tell me what you think. Thanks.

Brachiopods

Brachiopods

Crinoid Stems

Ammonites, Brachiopods, Crinoid Stems, Sponge

Cepholopods, Pryozoa, pieces of Horn Coral, small pieces of Trilobites, Crinoids, and odds and ends. Any idea what the piece in upper left corner is?

What is this?

Unsure??

Any idea as to what this may be in the next two photos?

Sharks Teeth

[Gatorman]

Nice collection

[Uncle Siphuncle]

SR

I grew up in Cincinnati and picked up similar material to your own. My stuff was Ordovician. The Dayton area transistions from Ordovician to Silurian. The Ordovician stuff is generally a little better preserved and more abundant, which is what your stuff looks like. I generally collect a little every time I go back. Last year produced a couple dozen Flexicalamene trilobites as well as Pycnocrinus and Ectenocrinus crinoid crowns and cool cephalopods.

[geofossil]

Great stuff

I like your method of display. I'm not much for squirreling away my collection in shoe boxes, the bottom of cupboards, etc. Nice displays, see through boxes, etc. make collections much more accesible and enjoyable. Otherwise 'good stuff' gets lost amongst the clutter and 'bits and pieces'.

Great swirls of specimens! I'm a big brachiopod collector and appreciate your use of them.

One note: you have one display with hand written labels (4 specimens). The phyla are correct but the the first specimen is a cephalopod but not an ammonite, nor Devovian, and the second is a brachiopod but not Cambrian.

Thumbs up on giving us all lots to drool over!

[Stevie Ray]

Thanks geofossil. Like I said, I am more into collecting Indian artifacts and just pick up the fossils when I see them. I labeled those from what I saw on other web sites, so thanks for the info. I'll be sure to change the labels.

[geofossil]

Oops. I meant to say the first one isn't an ammonite if Devonian....it IS an ammonite but is not Devonian. It's Mesozoic....looks Jurassic but possibly Cretacous. There's no real way of knowing without studying the suture patterns. I have about 400 species of cephalopods in my collection and still can't tell many apart without using a microscope going to the science publications.

Your artifacts are incredible. I've always claimed a collector 'gets the eye' when on the hunt. I've walked oblivious over artifacts when fossil hunting and had a artifact keener picking them up around me. When looking for dino teeth, etc. that I get so focused I don't even see much but that 'certain something' that it's a ooth, vertebra, etc. I've been out with artifact collectors on casual walks and they look at the terrain in a different way than I do. I'm looking around hoodoos and at clay exposures...certain colours of strata, etc. They are more interested in the natural benches back from the rivers, fire broken rock, teepee rings and so on. One time I was going out fossil hunting with a buddy and we never got into the badlands because there had been big grass fires on the short grass prairie and he was like a kid in a candy shop finding teepee rings and nearby choppers, points and so on. We also have some large buffalo jumps and there are artifacts around the base of them. One time I picked up a really nice awl and gave it to my friend when he started to drool over it. I was more interested in the buffalo skulls. I've only found few points in total over 30 or so years. Nothing stands out as spectacular but I wouldn't recognize a unique one. I give them away to those who appreciate them. Choppers are a lot more common as there are sometimes dozens if we look down grade from an area with lots of teepee rings, especially if near a buffalo jump.

As the saying goes, a bad day of fishing (or artifact or fossil collecting) is better than a good day of almost anything else. A positive and healthy addiction.

[worthy 55]

Those are outstanding fossils you have there Stevie Ray!!! :Thumbs-up:

[Stevie Ray]

Thanks guys. I appreciate it.

Here's one more piece I forgot to put on the original post. I have had this for years and I found it right on the Ohio River bank in Scioto county, Ohio. I have always joked that it's a petrified hand, though I know it's not, but any ideas what it might be.

[ebrocklds]

i agree with geo in that the ammonite is not devonian and that without a closer look it is impossible to be sure what it is exactly. but i have several Orthosphinctes ammonites from madagascar that are virtually identical in appearance and even have the same orange brown matrix on them. if in fact it is one of these it is jurassic in age.

great collection by the way!

brock

[Stevie Ray]

Thanks Brock. I bought those at an artifacts show, so they could very well be what you say they are since I didn't find them.

[Harry Pristis]

One note: you have one display with hand written labels (4 specimens). The phyla are correct but the the first specimen is a cephalopod but not an ammonite, nor Devovian, and the second is a brachiopod but not Cambrian.

Oops. I meant to say the first one isn't an ammonite if Devonian....it IS an ammonite but is not Devonian. It's Mesozoic....looks Jurassic but possibly Cretacous. There's no real way of knowing without studying the suture patterns. I have about 400 species of cephalopods in my collection and still can't tell many apart without using a microscope going to the science publications.

I am confused by your remarks here. WHY isn't the cephalopod in Stevie's pic an ammonite if Devonian?? That is, why can't the cephalopod be both an ammonite AND Devonian?

You say that the cephalopods cannot be identified without microscopic examination; yet, you pronounce the cephalopod in a tiny, fuzzy image is NOT an ammonite if Devonian. Or, if it actually is an ammonite, it cannot be Devonian. It looks Mesozoic to you.

I suppose that Stevie's cephalopods could be nautiloids from a period other than Devonian; but, what is your evidence? Assertions without evidence are always suspect. Share with us the deductive process that led to your assertions.

I hope you will tell us how you came to your own conclusions about these fossils to clear up the confusion.

---------Harry Pristis

[geofossil]

It's certainly not an assertion without evidence but I can see you are unfamiliar with cephalopod evolution. Perhaps you are confusing 'ammonoid' (goniatites and ceratites until the Permian) with 'ammonite'. There are no 'ammonites' in the Devonian. They don't evolve for over another 100 million years until the late Permian and remain the dominant hard-shelled cephalopod until the end of the Cretaceous. I have several specimens of Devonian cephalopods and the difference with later cephalopods is easy to determine not only from the larger shell morphology (as seen in the photo) but also from less obvious features such as the suture patterns, position of siphuncle. etc. The photo is NOT of a Devonian ammonite (there is no such thing). It's an ammonite. Which one and age? No way to know without examining the suture pattern. Ebroclds may be correct above and on the right ammonite branch... Orthosphinctes or related.

[Harry Pristis]

Thanks for making clear your thinking. I should have noted that Stevie was using the vernacular "ammonite" instead of the more correct "ammonoid." Maybe you could have pointed that out in your first post.

As for my state of knowledge, I just know how to ask questions.

You've defined "ammonoid" (Subclass Ammonoidea) here as goniatites and ceratites until the Permian. I guess you mean the Order Goniatitida and the Order Ceratitida. Isn't that definition incomplete? Do you mean to exclude the other orders, Anarcestida, Clymeniida, Prolecanitida, Phylloceratida, Lytoceratida, etc(?) from the Ammonoidea? Most of these orders are exclusively Paleozoic.

What do you mean by from the larger shell morphology (as seen in the photo)? Are you asserting that all Devonian ammonoids are significantly smaller than later ammonoids? That would be a leap of logic, wouldn't it, since all ammonoids start out small and grow. Jackie's unidentified ammonoid could be at any growth stage from juvenile to adult -- size means little without other identifying characteristics.

It's great to have collectors here who take an interest in such details!

--------Harry Pristis