(Aus) My First Hunt, Alone And A Noob! Here's What I Found

[Jace]

Hey Guys!

I'm pretty proud of myself, ( if i have actually found something )

Researched my bum off and found some good looking sites based off the geology of the area and my limited but growing understanding of where fossils occur.

I checked out 2 locations and i'll link what i found at each.

Picton - Sight 1

Edited May 20, 2014 by Jace

[Jace]

I'll Put some high-res pics up tonight from my DSLR - ( don't worry.. they will be high quality.. i'm a photographer ( these shots were all from my Iphone ))

[Jace]

Site 2 - Picton area also. _ OUr property, Did not find any fossils in the black shale here, but i think i found coral chucks?? ( The property is like 1.5 hours from the beach..)

Im confused here, i found black shale here too.. and its about 50 meters down in a gully full of rain forrest.. I spent a good 1.5 hours there and did not find ANY animal fossils, Though some of the shale had what looked like very sparse black lines and specs in it which under closer inspection look kinda like small fine grain bits of plant matter, like tiny leaf segments and whatnot.. Reckon there is potential for fossils there? The first 12 inches or so of shale is all wet and cumbly.. then it darkens into the really dark dry shale behind that,

Reckon this is ancient coral? If it is.. it must be old!

This is the same chunk.. its about 15 inches by 11 inches by 5 inches.

It has coral structure in it as well as some very old looking mother of pearl stuff and its very brittle...

[Pumpkinhead]

Can you tell us the age and/or formation of the rock you searched in? I know almost nothing about Australian geology other than the fact that there are some famous sites.

[Jace]

The stratigraphy of the Wianamatta Group Triassic System, Sydney Basin

Abstract

The Wianamatta Group has been divided into two sub-groups—the Liverpool sub-group (lower, approximately 400 feet thick, predominantly shale lithology) and the Camden sub-group (upper, approximately 350 feet thick, sandstone lithology prominent with shale). The Liverpool sub-group includes three formations (Ashfield Shale, Minchinbury Sandstone, Bringelly Shale). The Camden sub-group includes five formations (Potts Hill Sandstone, Annan Shale, Razorback Sandstone, Picton Formation, Prudhoe Shale).

The sedimentary petrology of the graywacke-type sandstones and the relation of the lithology to the sedimentary environment and tectonics is discussed. A new element, the envirotope, is defined to be used with the elements lithotope and tectotope (Krumbein and Sloss, 1951) to describe a lithologic sequence.

Post-depositional tectonics are briefly discussed and a new series of tectonic features described from the southwestern suburbs of Sydney

Edited May 20, 2014 by Jace

[Jace]

I thought i'd found crinoid columnals... But they arn't Shaped like any of the pics i can find,. The Shape if you could stand it up looks like this from a cross section--> () Not square like --> []

[Pumpkinhead]

Looks like you've found some interesting stuff. Unfortunately, I don't think I can tell you what any of it is as I mostly collect older Paleozoic fossils. I'm sure that someone will know what you've got though. Which picture do you think you found the Crinoid segments in though?

[Jace]

Looks like you've found some interesting stuff. Unfortunately, I don't think I can tell you what any of it is as I mostly collect older Paleozoic fossils. I'm sure that someone will know what you've got though. Which picture do you think you found the Crinoid segments in though?

Thanks! pic 4 and 5 are the little round fossil guys, I found them by cracking sheets off the shale and i get an indent on one side and the fossil on the other side, Not sure what they are, The shale is so easy to crack, The little fossils are hard to see details on though they appear to be a disk with Beveled edges. Each side looks like it has 4-6 lines radiating out from the center ( very minor and hard to see ) and a shape in the center, some look like a hexagon or maybe even a star shape in the middle though i haven't found one big enough to see properly..

Edited May 20, 2014 by Jace

[Pumpkinhead]

That rock does look pretty brittle... I wish the stuff here was that easy to split.

[Jace]

Hmm.. Wonder why no one else has commented :/

[Fossildude19]

Well, it's been less than 24 hours, and sometimes it takes a while to get someone who may know what you have to look at your post.

Some patience is required. Especially when displaying specimens from a not so well known area.

To me, I am having trouble seeing any detail in your pics - - maybe if you could take better close ups of the fossils themselves?

The second one looks to me like a star shaped crinoid columnal, but seems odd that it is the only one there.

I don't think your third item is a coral - looks more geologic than biologic to me, but I am not well versed in corals, sponges, or algae.

Have you seen this PDF in your research of the area?

Do you know which formation you are actually hunting? Is it the Picton formation?

You may take some of your finds, and some pics of the area to a museum to see if they can help you narrow down what formation you are hunting, then research from there.

Good luck!

Regards,

[Pumpkinhead]

If you post some close up pics if the "coral" you found I might be able to help, I have a bit of coral knowledge.

[mikeymig]

The "coral" looks like travertine to me.

mikey

[Jace]

Okay! Here we go.. Im thinking starfish bodies, you know the ones that are like a hexagon with little wiggly stringy legs coming out of each apex? and the other one.. id say trilobite.. but.. has no legs or anything,, lol Maybe a seedpod? NOTE: Size = nothing is over 15mm

Edited May 21, 2014 by Jace

[mikeymig]

Fossils are rare in black shale. This type of shale is the result of a anaerobic environment and contains large amounts of organic matter but few fossils. Most black shale contain nodules of various sizes and I think that's what you have found. They look like fossils but they are geologic in origin.

mikey

[Jace]

Hey Mikey, Thanks for your opinion, Its hard to show you what i i see through photos, now im thinking they are a vertically compressed type of Echinoid. There are hundreds of them throughout the shale, nearly every piece has one to five of these in it, they are all different sized but all share the same shape and design pattern.

welcome anyone else to have a shot

[Jace]

Could be these?

Sea Urchin Echinoid
Scutellinoides patella.

U oz22
Glenforslan Formation, Waikerie, South Australia.

Miocene 23 Million years old

This image and info belongs to :http://www.fossils.com.au/ozurchins.html

[Jace]

Ahha! Looks like they might be a species of Microcyclus.. Arn't they devonian? I was hunting in a known Triassic area

Microcyclus Meek and Worthen 1868 (horn coral)

Anthozoa - Rugosa - Hadrophyllidae

Parent taxon: Hadrophyllidae according to D. Hill 1956

See also Bassler 1937 and Sepkoski 2002

Sister taxon: Hadrophyllum

Subtaxa: Microcyclus blairi, Microcyclus discus, Microcyclus intermedius, Microcyclus leonensis, Microcyclus lyrulatus, Microcyclus multiradiatus, Microcyclus praecox, Microcyclus thedfordensis

View classification

Ecology: stationary epifaunal suspension feeder

Environments: carbonate (1 collection), marine (1), open shallow subtidal (1), reef, buildup or bioherm (1), offshore shelf (1)

Age range: 409.1 to 383.7 Ma

Distribution:

• Devonian of Canada (2: Northwest Territories collections), China (1), Germany (3), United States (1: New York)

Total: 7 collections each including a single occurrence

[Wrangellian]

Those little lens-shaped things are odd.. the black color to me suggests plant material (eg. seeds) but the abundance seems odd for a shale deposit. I think the abundance of fossils in general in black shale depends on your paleolatitude - here we have lots of fossils in the black shale, but we were more temperate during deposition times whereas Mikey's must have been tropical considering there is limestone there too, so that would make sense there. I may be wrong, but in any case there are black shale dep's with lots o fossils. I'm not sure what your paleolat. was during the Trias...

Anyway I don't see the kinds of details that would put it in the Echinoid or Coral category - There was another thread from somewhere in your part of the world with fig-looking fossils that turned out to be pseudofossil.. I don't know if I can find it right away, but I wonder if you've got something similar?

Can we see a pic of the inside (cross-sect.) of the one that's broken in half?

Edited May 26, 2014 by Wrangellian

[Jace]

Hello and thank you for your reply! I will attempt to break one in half and get a good shot for you, I have broken them myself out in the field to see if they were concretions/ nodes as i am quite into geology in the area of Gemstones and crystals but these do not seam to have any color changes inside, nor any kind of layering, they are the same shale rock inside and the same colour with no obvious mineralization or formations of any kind similar to anything ive seen in normal pseudo fossils. It's l;ike they were filled with jelly when they were alive, allowing the rock to completely and evenly fill their inside space with rock.

Also, they all appear to have the exact same patterns in the indents they leave and they are the same whether they are 3mm x 3mm or 15mm x 15mm

I will get some Photos up!

[BobWill]

...

There was another thread from somewhere in your part of the world with fig-looking fossils that turned out to be pseudofossil.. I don't know if I can find it right away, but I wonder if you've got something similar?

That's where I've seen this before. I can't find the thread either but maybe someone can. Jace, you should focus on age when you consider possibilities. If you're sure it's Wianamatta and that makes it Triassic, then the Scuttellinoides would be much too late being Miocene, and Microcyclus much too early if it's Devonian. You'll get the idea if you look up the dates of these periods for a reference.

Miocene lasted from 23 to 5 million years ago

Triassic 250 to 200 mya

Devonian 420 to 360 mya

Edited May 26, 2014 by BobWill

[Jace]

That's where I've seen this before. I can't find the thread either but maybe someone can. Jace, you should focus on age when you consider possibilities. If you're sure it's Wianamatta and that makes it Triassic, then the Scuttellinoides would be much too late being Miocene, and Microcyclus much too early if it's Devonian. You'll get the idea if you look up the dates of these periods for a reference.

Miocene lasted from 23 to 5 million years ago

Triassic 250 to 200 mya

Devonian 420 to 360 mya

Hi Bob!

Thankyou for the info! I'd found a list of the dates ( though thankyou for providing them ) which is why i was confused.. the closest thing i can find to them is just too old to be found in this area like you said, i have sent some photos and info to the Australian museum which is near where i live and i've sent the same info to their head Paleontologist as well so hopefully we'll get some answers soon! and if not the volunteer i spoke to on the phone sounded interested in coming and taking a look himself and taking some samples back for ID.

I really appreciate you guys taking the time to help me out such a great community

Jace.

[tooth_claw]

_{I'm a bit late to this party but I would like to say well done for taking some initiative and getting out there to find fossil sites. I have no idea about the identity of your finds but I think that you have taken all the right steps toward a solid ID. Also, great photos! Let us know what the result (if any) is, the process would be illuminating for other newbies.}

[Scylla]

I agree with crinoid columnal for the round one with the star in the middle. The other ones could be sponges, maybe. Look at them with high magnification to see if you can make out any spicules.

[Jace]

Okay! Must give credit where it's due

These are Pseudo-fossils as advised, they are call Guilielmites and they are found in Ashfield Shales in the Wianamatta group. Bit bummed! but it's okay! just means i have to look harder!

Thankyou to everyone for your advise and assistance!

Cheers!

Jace.