Crinoid Tentacles?

[hitekmastr]

Collected this yesterday (Oct 6) at Deer Lake - Mahantango/Hamilton Grp.

Are these impressions crinoid tentacles, or some other soft bodied creature?

The arrows show the stem and tentacles of what looks like a tiny piece of the top of the stem with some tentacles attached, flowing to the right. Farther toward the top right, it looks like tentacles from another crinoid extending from the right toward the center.

Here is the same photo with a ruler to show the size.

[Rob Russell]

Interesting find! However, I'm not seeing the typical structure of a crinoid here. I'll be tuning in to see what the experts come up with on this one!

[araucaria1959]

I don't think crinoid too. Like the stem of a crinoid, the tentacles are also built from tiny calcified "segments", and I miss any segmentation in your specimen. Pseudofossil? Algae?

araucaria1959

[ghost1066]

It is cool looking whatever it is. I can see why you are thinking crinoid but it doesn't look quite right. I await the pros response.

[Fossildude19]

Looks some kind of mineral staining to me.

Regards,

[mikeymig]

Like Tim, Im going with mineral staining.

[hitekmastr]

Looks some kind of mineral staining to me.

Regards,

I also thought it might be a mineralization at first, but there seems to be the top of a stem piece where the "tentacles" come together at the bottom of the middle pattern where the base would normally be. On the rock, it is more 3 dimensional suggesting that this could be the top of a calcium structure of some sort, which would explain why the calcium piece is more or less preserved, while the softer "tentacles" would be an impression if they are soft tissue. It seems like the tentacles come out of that "base" which looks like a very small cylinder. When I process some fossils this winter, I'm going to use the Dremel to carve away some of the shale around the base to see what might be there, which would offer more info. I'm open to any interpretations and there are probably a few explanations.

If it is in fact a mineralization it's an interesting pattern - I guess my question is, if this is a fossil impression, what kind of fossil would it be? By the way, there were no other mineralizations of this type on any of the other fragments from the larger piece that I extracted which leads me to think this is not just a mineral pattern.

Edited October 7, 2012 by hitekmastr

[Roadrunner]

I also thought it might be a mineralization at first, but there seems to be the top of a stem piece where the "tentacles" come together at the bottom of the middle pattern where the base would normally be. On the rock, it is more 3 dimensional suggesting that this could be the top of a calcium structure of some sort, which would explain why the calcium piece is more or less preserved, while the softer "tentacles" would be an impression if they are soft tissue. It seems like the tentacles come out of that "base" which looks like a very small cylinder. When I process some fossils this winter, I'm going to use the Dremel to carve away some of the shale around the base to see what might be there, which would offer more info. I'm open to any interpretations and there are probably a few explanations.

If it is in fact a mineralization it's an interesting pattern - I guess my question is, if this is a fossil impression, what kind of fossil would it be? By the way, there were no other mineralizations of this type on any of the other fragments from the larger piece that I extracted which leads me to think this is not just a mineral pattern.

Does the detail look anything like this?

http://images.search...di&fr=yfp-t-701

And here are some more images like you are describing;

http://www.google.com/search?num=10&hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1024&bih=534&q=crinoid+fossil&oq=crinoid+fossil&gs_l=img.12..0.3476.6190.0.7597.14.7.0.7.7.0.68.268.7.7.0...0.0...1ac.1.Sx8iGXnyl50

Edited October 8, 2012 by Roadrunner

[hitekmastr]

Does the detail look anything like this?

http://images.search...di&fr=yfp-t-701

And here are some more images like you are describing;

http://www.google.co...c.1.Sx8iGXnyl50

The "tentacles" don't appear to be encrusted in hard tubes which leads me to think they are impressions from soft tentacles of some sort, very thin. If they are not mineralizations (which remains a possibility), they could be from a soft bodied creature which may not be a crinoid. I hope to find more clues when I carve away some of the substrate.

[Roadrunner]

The "tentacles" don't appear to be encrusted in hard tubes which leads me to think they are impressions from soft tentacles of some sort, very thin. If they are not mineralizations (which remains a possibility), they could be from a soft bodied creature which may not be a crinoid. I hope to find more clues when I carve away some of the substrate.

That makes sense. There are plenty of examples of crinoid fossils that had soft, feathery tentacles. Some can be seen among these pictures;

http://www.google.co...1ac.ullpbxA-WVg

Edited October 9, 2012 by Roadrunner

[hitekmastr]

Thanks - there is a very small piece of what appears to be a stem poking out of the rock but not enough to identify - it doesn't show up on the photos of the pattern - I'll do some chipping/grinding when I get a chance and try to expose it to see if it is in fact part of a stem.