An Amazing Cretaceous Botanical

[Tennessees Pride]

This is a paleobotanical i have put the finishing touches on. It is extremely unusual for my area....the only one i actually know of. It simply isn't listed in any of prof. Berry's works, nor any later works by later botanists. It has been shown to 1 paleo botanist and 1 prof. of geology, neither gave me any feedback as to it's possible botanical source. It seems this one is pretty hard to i.d. The specimen comes from a late Cretaceous formation that is marine in origin, and very close to 80 mya. The source layer for this material appears to have been originally deposited as driftwood which in turn became lignite, @ some point iron bearing waters came into contact with the lignite, which in turn covered it over w/ a thin crust- like material. This specimen is fragile, probably as fragile as it was when deposited....if not for the ferro-type crust encasing it, the specimen would have probably never have retained it definition. Truely, i have found tons of lignites, but have never ran up on a specimen of this order. Perhaps it's a new botanic for Tennessee? To me,it looks like araucaria! @ first glance, one would sware it's a cone.....until rolling it over and seeing a branch sticking out the side! This specimen needs an i.d. badly, as,it is perhaps "new" (atleast for Tn, if not more). And the first person to positively identify it will receive credit in a academic paper that is being written. Thanks for taking the time to help.

[Tennessees Pride]

This specimen was within 2 ft of the first specimen, on a small bar directly in front of the outcrop. It resembles a cone to me....but i guess i could be fooling myself....i have questioned is it a burrow for a worm type organism that lived in the sediments underwater? All i can say with certainty is that this specimen was found in near association with the paleobotanic.

[Tennessees Pride]

A few more shots of the associated material.

[Tennessees Pride]

One other specimen collected in near association.

[Tethys]

The first photo is a piece of spruce branch. The second fossil is an insect gall from an adelgid on a spruce branch.

The fuzzy white things in the crevice of the branch in photo one is the adelgid.

Edited March 1, 2014 by Tethys

[RichW9090]

They all look like callianasid burrows to me.

[Tethys]

I know nothing about shrimp burrows, but I don't think they are preserved with lignite infill?

I know a lot about plants and photo one is a leader branch of some type of Pinus based on the raised, keeled scale, the whorled growth pattern. and the lignite. If you look closely at the tip of the branch shown at top of photo 1, you can see the needle scars. Araucaria scales grow in dense whorls that are pointed at the tip.

Photo two could also be a male cone, or a dormant bud on a side branch.

A quick google of cretaceous pinus gave this result. It has some photos of very eroded specimens of Prepinus (tree) and Amboystrobus (cone).

Turonian Pinaceae of the Raritan Formation, New Jersey

[Tennessees Pride]

Ya'll i am very sorry,a thing came up after i posted this,now i have returned from it, and have to get ready for a family event @ 6, i'll respond to this asap.

[ashcraft]

Don't know about the first one, but I don't see lignite in the second. Agree with burrow on it.

What formation did it come from?

fkaa

[lordpiney]

Id say the first pic is an evergreen lignite piece, but the second set of pics is a Ghost shrimp burrow 100 percent.

[squali]

I agree

lignite with limonite crust on the first one and burrow on the second

[Tennessees Pride]

Thank you all for the input, your opinions are very important to me. @ RichW, Lordpiney, Ashcroft, & Squali....it seems there is more than one type of burrow in those layers i'm hunting, & burrows aren't really a strong-point of mine, i need to study more on them, so one of the three specimens has me wondering also...if there's a burrow in the mix, good news, because it could possibly tell more about the paleo-ecology of the deposition layer. @ Tethys, miss, i clearly see you are extremely knowledgable in botanical areas! I try to grab up every good botanic i run up on when hunting for the next great thing. Have a reasonably good supply built up. Leaf specimens from clay, seeds, lignitic & various other forms of preservation, and one small cone so far. (I guess ya could even call me a tree-hugger too. ) It will be interesting getting to know you. In regards to the first specimen i posted, i do absolutely concur w/ your opinion of a morphology w/ a spruce type tree. When i previously stated the specimen was fragile, i was refering to how the scaly ferrocrete type material would fall off if handled wrong.....and truly, that does remind me of the very thin type bark of a pine or spruce...(to word differently: it reminds me of how "dead" bark comes off "dead" branches of those tree types. ) i would also like to post a photo here shortly which shows (in my opinion) what looks very simular to the specimen morphological wise. See what you think.

Edited March 2, 2014 by Tennessees Pride

[Tennessees Pride]

Tethys, this is a photo of W. Nobilis i ran up on one day. I know the idea of the specimen being that must be far-fetched....still, i can't get over the simularities this specimen has w/ that photo. As you can see, the scales of both W. Nobilis (according to "this" photo) & the Tennessee specimen have a little line that run down middleways of each scale...in that way, each look identical to me, also, observe how in the W. Nobilis photo how the pointed part of the scale has broken off from the scale itself....(forgive my unprofessional terminology)....now, @ that point where the long part of the scale has broke off, it almost resembles like a "cushion" where it connects with the main part of the scale......and in both examples, that "cushion" part is now "rounded over"......to me, they very closely resemble one another in those aspects. What do you think? Perhaps there are other pines or spruces which have those same simularities with the lignite specimen? (In those aspects)

Edited March 2, 2014 by Tennessees Pride