Paleocene Algae, Manganese Dendrites Or What Else?

[LNQ]

Hey everyone, I'm new to this forum and looking forward to being of help.

Anyway, I found this rock while taking a stroll on the hills of Emilia Romagna, near Parma, in northern Italy. Looking up on a geological map what rocks compose the ground, I found out that it's predominantly argillite, which sedimented during the early Paleocene, in hemipelagic conditions. Now, the rock shows two different features: in two of the photographs you can distinguish tree-like structures, which resemble algae, but could as well turn out to be manganese oxide dendrites; in the other one instead, you can see a warm-like figure, of which I have no clue. Can you help me identify it?

Edited September 15, 2014 by LNQ

[Raggedy Man]

Looks like mineral growth and not cyanobacteria(algae).

[Auspex]

I find the structures I've marked to be very organic in appearance:

[Carl]

I, too, get more of a biological signal here than purely mineralogical.

[Fossildude19]

They don't look like any dendrites I have seen, so my vote goes for biological as well.

Sorry, I have no clue as to what they might be, though.

Nice finds, anyway.

Regards,