St. Clair 2Nd Visit - Pennsylvanian Plant Fossils And Seeds

[hitekmastr]

These fossils are from our second visit to St. Clair (Aug 4) - several are fossils we haven't seen before so we appreciate help with IDs. Special thanks to Fossildude19 for the excellent starting points. Note: some of the images are out of order when you look at the photos below, because I am renaming and reposting them as they are being identified:

1 - Pecopteris Squamosa - This is small and the leaves are very close together and parallel - based on Lesquereux - amazing that some of the best fern identification sources are from 1879!

2 - Calamites Stem Fragment - A thin Calamites branch.

3 - Unidentified Plant - Nancy calls this a "flower" - of course it isn't, but it seems to be a different shape from others we collected at St. Clair.

4 - Alethopteris and Annularia - Included this because it makes for a nice artistic layout.

5a-5b - Asterophyllites equisetiformis - This interesting pattern appears over a large area several meters square in one part of the St. Clair site, and covers the surface of a very large flat boulder in one area of the site. (source:

6 - Siggilaria - This is our second Siggilaria trunk impression. Some of the trunk and branch fossils (Calamites, Siggilaria) are very exotic and interesting to collect.

7a-7c - Trigonocarpus (Seeds of the Alethopteris Fern) - The same shape appears in three different samples collected on our two trips and according to our friends on the site and reference materials, they appear to be Trigonocarpus seeds, which is very exciting because we keep reading about seed ferns but these are our first fossil seeds. One reference describes Trigonocarpus as the seeds of Alethopteris (which is the most common fern found at St. Clair) - other sources give these the nickname "fossil pecans" because of their physical resemblance.

8a-8b and 9a - Cyclopteris - Fan Shaped Leaves - Some of the reference books show round fan shaped versions of some common ferns but this looks like something separate so we're going with Cyclopteris. We'll try to find a separate, more articulated sample on a future trip.

10 - Unidentified Fern.

11 - Assume this is Sphenopteris.

12 - Assume this is Neuropteris - Where Neuropteris sometimes has rounded leaves (??)

13 - Sphenophyllum - Including just for fun.

I'll update the names in this list as the IDs are confirmed. One of our goals continues to be, finding scarce specimens we haven't come across yet, as well as articulated fossils, designs and larger pieces for display. As you can see, we're already making great headway identifying these. Thanks to everyone who helped us ID our finds in the past 2 months, and especially for helping with these...we're really surprised how many different species there are at this single site, all very close together.

Edited August 7, 2012 by hitekmastr

[Fossildude19]

Here are a few guesses for you -

1 - Pecopteris sp

2 - Calamites sp

3 - Annularia or Sphenopyllum

5 - Asterophyllites

7 a,b,c, - Trigonocarpus ? or similar...

8 a,b,c, - Cyclopteris

10 - Possilbly Neuropteris sp.???

Again, these are slightly edjucated guesses... so take them with a grain (or two) of salt.

Maybe this bump will get some plant guys to chime in and help you out some.

I hope this helps.

Regards,

Edited August 7, 2012 by Fossildude19

[ckmerlin]

wow ! such lovely wonderful plant fossils very Jealous

[ckmerlin]

Hi found this site that may help you for Id.. Im going to bookmark it for myself for future reference

http://www.metafysica.nl/wings/wings_3a.html

[hitekmastr]

Here are a few guesses for you -

1 - Pecopteris sp

2 - Calamites sp

3 - Annularia or Spheonpyllum

5 - Asterophyllites

7 a,b,c, - Trigonocarpus ? or similar...

8 a,b,c, - Cyclopteris

10 - Possilbly Neuropteris sp.???

Again, these are slightly edjucated guesses... so take them with a grain (or two) of salt.

Maybe this bump will get some plant guys to chime in and help you out some.

I hope this helps.

Regards,

Great start - sets me on the trail of some of the stickiest ones. I recently obtained a copy of the LESQUEREUX report with plates and thought this might be Trigonocarpus but didn't feel qualified to make that call, yet - so thanks especially for that. We continue to scan for unusual or less common fossils so the Trigonocarpus is a great call because now we'll go back and look for more of those, hopefully with more definition.

[hitekmastr]

Hi found this site that may help you for Id.. Im going to bookmark it for myself for future reference

http://www.metafysic...s/wings_3a.html

Wow - this is a great site. Thanks for finding this - much appreciated. We're reading about the Carboniferous period now and absorbing lots of information so this is very timely. Living 90 minutes from St. Clair means we can pop over there for a half a day now and then on a weekend and after 2 trips we're still excited about the site. We believe there is more there to discover. The carboniferous period is one of the more intriguing geological periods, partly because there are so many fossil gaps - especially the scarcity of fossil tetrapods, insects, reptiles, etc. at the border between Devonian and Carboniferous, which is another area that interests us. In this regard, we hope to return to Red Hill sometime soon, which was the very first site we visited.