A Very Cool Local Find: Plumalina Plumaria

[Mediospirifer]

Back around 1985, I found a few chips of shale in a creekbed with a fossil imprint that, to my inexperienced eye, looked like a leaf imprint. I thought it was a fern of some kind, but couldn't find anything like it in the fossil books I had access to, and all of the information I did have described this area as having been a shallow sea during the Devonian--no ferns present! I had a mystery, and lacked the means to solve it.

Ten years later, in a different creekbed, my husband and I found a few larger pieces, with more complete examples. Still, the available fossil books had no information on this "leaf"! The fossil remained a mystery to us, until we visited the Paleontological Research Institution to check out their museum. There in a display case was our mystery fossil, with a label! We now had a name to look for information on: Plumalina plumaria.

The fossil books we checked didn't list it. The 1990s Internet gave us one article about it--a short descriptive article written in the 1890s, with no pictures. We did learn that the fossil was not thought to be from a plant, but an animal similar to a sea pen. Very cool!

In 1996, we found a rock layer that gave several chunks of rock with fairly complete examples. As I was (very carefully!) extracting rocks from that layer, my husband walked along the cliff face, looking for more plumes. A large slab literally dropped from higher up the rock face to land near him, and when he picked it up to look at, he found several nearly complete plumes, and pieces of others. We counted pieces of 11 Plumalina plumaria in that slab. It remains one of the prizes of our collection.

A few closeups:

Here's a few photomicrographs showing the details:

We've found loose pieces in three different gorges in Tompkins County, plus one piece in a glacial moraine north of here.

Edited September 16, 2013 by Mediospirifer

[Wrangellian]

Congrats on the unusual acquisition - I had to pay dearly for my specimen!

You should post larger pics, it's hard to see what I'm looking at in these, except for the micrographs.

[Shamalama]

I didn't know about this unusual fossil either until I read Karl Wilson's website. Then I found some specimens for sale at a rock shop in Blasdell, NY and posted them on my Blog.

[Mediospirifer]

Congrats on the unusual acquisition - I had to pay dearly for my specimen!

You should post larger pics, it's hard to see what I'm looking at in these, except for the micrographs.

Thanks!

I'll post higher resolution versions of the closeups when I get home. I had to reduce the resolution to fit more than one in the post!

Shamalama, I've been to that rock shop. We ended up spending a lot more money than we intended--they have a lot of cool stuff!

We've found several nice specimens, but not yet any that show the branching.

Higher resolution pictures to come!

[piranha]

Plumalina has been shufffled around but not thought to be a sea pen.

They are classified in the Plumularioidea and very similar to the modern analog: Aglaophenia

 

This excellent paper was just published in the July issue of Journal of Paleontology. Congrats on the great finds!

 

 

Muscente, A.D., & Allmon, W.D. (2013)

Revision of the Hydroid Plumalina Hall, 1858 in the Silurian and Devonian of New York.

Journal of Paleontology, 87(4):710-725

 

OPEN ACCESS PDF

 

 

 

[Mediospirifer]

Plumalina has been shufffled around but not thought to be a sea pen. They are classified in the Plumularioidea and very similar to the modern analog: Aglaophenia

This excellent paper was just published in the July issue of Journal of Paleontology. Congrats on the great finds!

Muscente, A.D., & Allmon, W.D. (2013)

Revision of the Hydroid Plumalina Hall, 1858 in the Silurian and Devonian of New York.

Journal of Paleontology 87(4):710-725

Interesting! I'll have to download the paper. I've never heard of Aglaophenia. Looking at your link, I can certainly see the resemblance.

[Mediospirifer]

Here's some better pictures of the larger plumes. Tighter cropping on the original high-resolution photos:

[Plantguy]

Here's some better pictures of the larger plumes. Tighter cropping on the original high-resolution photos:

Plumalina plumaria left edge cropped.JPG Plumalina plumaria middle cropped.JPG Plumalina plumaria right edge cropped.JPG

Interesting critters! Thanks for showing us. Regards, Chris

[Fossildude19]

I have one, somewhere in my collection. I found it in the Panther Mountain Formation, near Cooperstown, NY.

I'll have to try and dig it out, and photograph it.

Regards,

[Mediospirifer]

Piranha:

Skimming the J. Paleo. article, I see that I need to look more carefully and do a bit more research--my pieces may be P. brevis or P. densa, rather than P. plumaria! I can't yet see the differences, I may need to take my rock over to the Museum of the Earth on one of their fossil ID days to ask an expert. The article mentions P. brevis being sampled near where we found our pieces.

Ah, well--back to read the article in depth!

Thanks!

[Shamalama]

Plumalina has been shufffled around but not thought to be a sea pen. They are classified in the Plumularioidea and very similar to the modern analog: Aglaophenia

This excellent paper was just published in the July issue of Journal of Paleontology. Congrats on the great finds!

Muscente, A.D., & Allmon, W.D. (2013)

Revision of the Hydroid Plumalina Hall, 1858 in the Silurian and Devonian of New York.

Journal of Paleontology 87(4):710-725

Huh, How'd I miss that article? Thanks for the link/reminder!

[Wrangellian]

Your specimens seem to be quite long and narrow, I wonder if that will be diagnostic.. mine is a little shorter though it may be cut off at the bottom. Mine appears to be about 2cm wide, how do yours compare?

[Mediospirifer]

Your specimens seem to be quite long and narrow, I wonder if that will be diagnostic.. mine is a little shorter though it may be cut off at the bottom. Mine appears to be about 2cm wide, how do yours compare?

I'll have to measure it when I get home! If I recall correctly, my fronds are a little over 1 cm wide, and the longest is around 20 cm long.

Looking at the J. Paleo. article that Piranha referenced, it's not width of the frond (what I've been calling 'plumes' above) that is measured so much as length of the spines (hydrocladia) and their density. Hydrocladial length alone won't distinguish between P. plumaria and P. brevis, although it does rule out P. densa--that one has hydrocladia that are nearly twice the length of either of the other two. P. plumaria has slightly longer hydrocladia than P. brevis, but there is some overlap. P. brevis has a higher density of hydrocladia than P. plumaria and is more rigid along the central stem (hydrocaulus).

Based on these characters, plus the fact that the paper describes a spot close to where I found mine, I'm going to call it P. brevis for the time being, at least until I can take it to PRI to have an expert look at it. And what do you know? One of the paper's authors is at PRI--I could probably arrange to show my specimens to him!

Edited September 19, 2013 by Mediospirifer

[Wrangellian]

You can tell I haven't read the paper but I wasn't sure that the width would be indicative of anything, but so far sounds like yours and mine could be the same except yours are closer to being 'complete', whatever that might look like. 20cm! Mine's only a few cms. Mine is labelled plumaria though that could be wrong too for all I know. Will be watching to see if you get an ID from PRI.

[MarleysGh0st]

Based on these characters, plus the fact that the paper describes a spot close to where I found mine, I'm going to call it P. brevis for the time being, at least until I can take it to PRI to have an expert look at it. And what do you know? One of the paper's authors is at PRI--I could probably arrange to show my specimens to him!

Not just at PRI, he's the director!

[Mediospirifer]

Not just at PRI, he's the director!

I didn't know that!!

Well, I just sent him an email; we'll see what he has to say. I included the macro photos that I posted here plus a few micros, and the measurements that I've taken. Here's an excerpt from my letter:

"Most of the fronds and fragments have hypocladia with lengths of 7 mm (except for around the tip, where they taper). I had difficulty measuring the density of the hypocladia, but I believe that they have 15-20 hypocladia on each side of the hydrocaulus per cm. One of the fragments has longer hypocladia (1 cm) with a coarser spacing than the others. Is it possible that our slab contains both P. plumaria and P. brevis?"

I'll post an update when I hear back from him.

[fossilcrazy]

I did a Fossil Forum message string on Plumalina plumaria a couple years ago. Take a view of some additional specimen examples.

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/24071-when-is-a-fossil-feather-not-from-a-bird/?hl=feather

Edited September 21, 2013 by fossilcrazy

[fossilcrazy]

One of my better Plumalina fossils I found in 2002, got donated to the Royal Ontario Museum in 2004.

The ROM now has it on their website. http://images.rom.on.ca/public/index.php?function=browse&action=result&filter=sc_coll&catid=77&areaid=70&sid=&ccid=

(You will need to go to the second page. There is no direct link to the page).

Where I collect the Plumalina fossils they are all in siltstone. When freshly broken the specimens look greenish blue like this:

On weathered fractures the water oxidizes the Iron content to a rusty color like this:

Edited September 21, 2013 by fossilcrazy

[Wrangellian]

Nice ones, FC! These all beat my paltry piece to $#!%

[Mediospirifer]

Fossilcrazy, those are impressive pieces! Looking at your picture with the ruler, they're significantly larger than my specimens. I did click through to your previous thread, and looked at the Yukon pieces linked from there--that Yukon frond with the penny is huge! You might have an undescribed species there. The closest in hydrocladial length I see in the J. Paleo. article that Piranha linked is P. densa. That has hydrocladia of 17-21 mm length, and a hydrocaulus (main stem) of 1 mm width. Your piece looks like it has slightly longer hydrocladia, and a much wider hydrocaulus. P. conservata has a wider hydrocaulus, but isn't described in any detail in the J. Paleo. article, only illustrated with one photo than doesn't show the hydrocladial lengths. The branching Yukon piece is very cool, too!

Wrangellian, don't feel badly about your piece. Any recognizable Plumalina is a cool piece to own. Enjoy it! My first couple of finds were 3-5 cm of recognizable frond on a loose chip of shale, and it was 10 years or more before I found anything more complete. Even in places where it can be found, it's not common!

[Wrangellian]

Thanks Medio, I certainly value it as my only specimen of that group.. better than nothing! (It sounds comparable to your first specimen) But it appears to be coated in something, either glue or hairspray, and I'm afraid of what might happen if I try to remove it.

That Yukon piece is definitely something else, that caught my eye too!

[Mediospirifer]

Thanks Medio, I certainly value it as my only specimen of that group.. better than nothing! (It sounds comparable to your first specimen) But it appears to be coated in something, either glue or hairspray, and I'm afraid of what might happen if I try to remove it.

That Yukon piece is definitely something else, that caught my eye too!

Considering that Plumalina is a fossil that isn't listed in most fossil books, I think any piece is something special. I mean, it's not even mentioned in Devonian Paleontology of New York!!!

I certainly understand being cautious about removing the coating on your piece. My pieces (in shale) seem pretty stable (I've never coated them with anything), and I'd expect them to survive an acetone bath just fine, but I'm no expert! If the coating on yours doesn't obscure the fossil, I'd leave it, otherwise I'd recommend finding an expert near you to advise you on whether it can be safely removed or not.

Both of those Yukon pieces are pretty wild. I'd say that my specimens resemble (small) pheasant tail feathers--that one with the penny looked more like ostrich! And the other piece puts me in mind of a hemlock tree branch.

If you ever come to New York, drop me a PM and I'll show you where to look.

[Wrangellian]

You're right about the hemlock branch, something like that crossed my mind!

Surprising that Plumalina isn't in that book... it's one of the more interesting things from your area - maybe it's not common enough? Many of the rare things from my area aren't in our local guidebook West Coast Fossils, yet I have found some of them nonetheless.

I'll take a chance with my specimen with water, then acetone if that doesn't work, and if it's ruined, it's not the end of the world because it's not exactly a museum specimen...

I doubt I'll ever make it out to NY, as enticing as that is, but thanks!

[MarleysGh0st]

Surprising that Plumalina isn't in that book... it's one of the more interesting things from your area - maybe it's not common enough?

Yes, I think it was a problem of space, with some categories of fossils getting short shrift. Trace fossils, straight cephalopods, crinoids, bryozoa and corals only get a total of two pages between them, at the end of the book. And vertebrates don't appear, at all!

Most of the material in Linsley was reproduced from 19th century works by James Hall, and Hall did not overlook Plumalina. The paper mentioned earlier by Muscente and Allmon list three references by Hall.

[Mediospirifer]

Yes, I think it was a problem of space, with some categories of fossils getting short shrift. Trace fossils, straight cephalopods, crinoids, bryozoa and corals only get a total of two pages between them, at the end of the book. And vertebrates don't appear, at all!

Most of the material in Linsley was reproduced from 19th century works by James Hall, and Hall did not overlook Plumalina. The paper mentioned earlier by Muscente and Allmon list three references by Hall.

There's no plant fossils in the book, either.

They do have an extensive section on the geology of NY (104 pages!) and lots of detail on brachiopods, bivalves, gastropods, trilobites, and eurypterids. I'd love to see a companion volume of all of the fossils that didn't make this book!