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Need Help Id More Ordovician From Near Green Bay, Wi


dalmayshun

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I am asking for help again, going through some of the fossil finds I made on my loop through wi , mi recently. Found some great things, and I am learning so much from all of you who are helping...a couple pieces in this batch are from what is called "hash" i found outpost-16553-0-56211700-1413999664_thumb.jpgpost-16553-0-96997100-1413999680_thumb.jpg. I have a cooler filled with rocks all of which have cool things in them, when I get back to Ft Myers. I will join the local fossil club. Thanks for your help. There are two shell fragments here, photographed togetherpost-16553-0-86615200-1413999391_thumb.jpg, then separatelypost-16553-0-85788500-1413999433_thumb.jpg for better viewspost-16553-0-78106500-1413999545_thumb.jpg. One piece I think is a trilobite quarterpost-16553-0-05195700-1413999626_thumb.jpg, but the little brown slick fragments are unknown ....and finally, that anomaly little disk piece with the copper buttonpost-16553-0-45742900-1413999588_thumb.jpg, I would have thought was just a mineral fluke, except I found three of them exactly the same...this was the only one i could extract. Again, in advance thanks for your help...no cats or panthers in this bunch.

I photographed these before I thought about their size, the small shells photographed together are each about the size of a 50 cent piece, the shells in the hash are each the size of a quarter, the little oval with the copper dot is a dime size, and the trilobite piece ( if I am correct) is about the size of a quail egg...thanks guys

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yes that is the green stuff, this was all collected at the same spot, the one side is a hill of clay with shelves of this running through it, the other side is cliff material, with layers, i can reach that have fossils...i am learning which layers and what kind of material do have them...exciting for me, and as always I appreciate the help.

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The "trilobite quarter" is half of a pygidium. The "slick brown fragments" are pieces of thoracic segments. The pygidium is too large for Calyptalux, I'd guess some sort of an asaphid, perhaps Pseudogygites.

I think the piece with a "copper button" is a pyrite nodule, not a fossil.

Don

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i know i have seen the shell with the ridge in a drawing, but can no longer find it. One of those things i guess, thanks, my suspicion bout the copper was always some kind of mineral.

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The pygidium is a very good match for Pseudogygites. It's quite an unusual discovery as none have been recorded in the literature from Wisconsin. The closest reported occurrence to Green Bay is P. latimarginatus from the Upper Peninsula near Newberry, Michigan. Your find ranks in rarity with a single isolated pygidium of Pseudogygites arcticus from Greenland. The Royal Ontario Museum would certainly be thrilled to add it to their collection as it represents a previously unknown locality. Please consider donating it for a more comprehensive understanding and possible future research of an important group of trilobites.

 

Ludvigsen, R. (1979)
The Ordovician Trilobite Pseudogygites Kobayashi in Eastern and Arctic North America.
Royal Ontario Museum, Life Sciences Contributions, 120:1-41
 
Lane, P.D. (1986)
The Ordovician trilobite Pseudogygites from Greenland.
Grønlands Geologiske Undersøkelse Rapport, 132:78
 
 
 

image.png.a84de26dad44fb03836a743755df237c.png

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Piranha, thanks so much for the wonderfl help. But I need to aplogize big time. I am so new to this all...when i posted the last batch, including that trilobite, I simply pulled the images that were together on my phone...but after your excitement...I went back to the details I wrote down re: the trilobite and where I found it, and in point of fact, I scarfed it up from the edge of a degrading hill, about 10 miles east of Newberry, Michigan. So I am sorry, and will be more careful in my posts from now on. All of you are teaching me so much, dont give up on us newbies, even if we frustrate you at times. It is still a very exciting find for me, especially after your identification and clarification. Thanks so much.

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Incidentally, the shell pieces are from the Green Bay area, I know I have seen them in drawings, but so far no one has hazarded a guess as to what they are...can someone point me in the right direction to find an answer.

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...I went back to the details I wrote down re: the trilobite and where I found it, and in point of fact, I scarfed it up from the edge of a degrading hill, about 10 miles east of Newberry, Michigan...

A Pseudogygites from Green Bay would have been spectacular, but glad you kept good field collecting notes.

Finding it near Newberry is a tidy outcome in any event. Congrats!

image.png.a84de26dad44fb03836a743755df237c.png

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Re: the "shell" pieces...I distinctly remember them both as being on one page of drawings...the small shell with the hard ridge down its center, and the flat shell with its one offset...maybe I should be looking in silurian references, or something other than ordovician, since I discovered, the site i collected the pieces has layers from different time periods...I didn't know that before...I have to do more research on it....and I don't want to seem unappreciative, or suggest endocasts isn't correct, but with the distinct memory of seeing both shell types on one page of shell drawings has me continuing my quest.

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ok my detective work continues, read about where I collected these pieces, Silurian Mayville Formation topping the Maquoketa Formation, consisting of Scales Shale, Ft Atkinson, and Brainard Shale. And I am wondering if the shell is a bivalve? with the little piece out, possibly Ambonychia? Hey, its a start!

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Re: the "shell" pieces...I distinctly remember them both as being on one page of drawings...the small shell with the hard ridge down its center, and the flat shell with its one offset..

Maybe you are thinking of some genus of Brachiopoda Inarticulata?

Here's one I have that I believe is Discina. Some of the inarticulas are "hat-like".

post-16101-0-96320300-1414496368_thumb.jpg

Brachiopoda Inarticula Acrotretida Discinidae Discina ?

But the one you show has that thick edge, so I think is not an inarticula.

Edited by tmaier
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