Show Us Your Erratics.

[DE&i]

I always pick these up for placing around the garden .And as they are erratics they are certainly worth picking up considering all the tumbling around they have done.

Bivalve

Lopha gregarea

(Animalia, Invertebrata, Mollusca, Bivalvia)

Description: Specimen of a fossil bivalve, Lopha gregarea, collected from unspecified rocks of Late Jurassic, Bathonian (?) age.

From Maxey, Lincolnshire (E England).

Lopha gregarea was an oyster with a thick, strongly ribbed shell. It attached itself to other shells with a cement-like material. This shellfish usually lived on the sea floor. It was a filter feeder, which means that it fed by filtering sea water to extract the nutrients that it needed.

It is from the Jurassic period (206 - 144 million years ago)

Regards,

Darren.

[Ludwigia]

Hi Darren,

your thread here has come for me in a very timely fashion. Just today I recieved what I believe to be a glacial erratic from a friend of mine who could tell me next to nothing about it, except for the fact that it was found somewhere in the Mark Brandenburg in northern Germany where I know a lot of erratics have ended up after their long journey on the ice sheets that came down from Scandinavia way back when. I believe it to be a longtudinal slice through the phragmocone of a paleozoic orthocone nautilus, but I'd be happy to hear from anyone who could either confirm or correct my assumption or even tell me a bit more about it.

The block measures 12x10cm.

[DE&i]

Hi Darren,

your thread here has come for me in a very timely fashion. Just today I recieved what I believe to be a glacial erratic from a friend of mine who could tell me next to nothing about it, except for the fact that it was found somewhere in the Mark Brandenburg in northern Germany where I know a lot of erratics have ended up after their long journey on the ice sheets that came down from Scandinavia way back when. I believe it to be a longtudinal slice through the phragmocone of a paleozoic orthocone nautilus, but I'd be happy to hear from anyone who could either confirm or correct my assumption or even tell me a bit more about it.

N41.2.jpg The block measures 12x10cm.

Hi Roger,

Now that’s certainly one of the most interesting journeys a fossil could tell you if it could. I to would also like to hear other opinions.

The name Devensian glaciation is used by British geologists and archaeologists here in Britain.

What is the glacial terminology used in your part of the world.

[Ludwigia]

Devensian was the last glaciation to hit the British isles. There were three others before them: Wolstonian, Anglian and Beestonian. It depends on where you're sitting as far as the different names for the various glaciation cycles are concerned. In the north of Germany there were 3 major advances: Elster, Saale and Weichsel plus one more earlier on called Menapian. Down here in the south where the glaciers came down from the alps there were also 4 of them: Guenz, Mindel, Riss and Wuerm.

Edited December 15, 2014 by Ludwigia

[DE&i]

Devensian was the last glaciation to hit the British isles. There were three others before them: Wolstonian, Anglian and Beestonian. It depends on where you're sitting as far as the different names for the various glaciation cycles are concerned. In the north of Germany there were 3 major advances: Elster, Saale and Weichsel plus one more earlier on called Menapian. Down here in the south where the glaciers came down from the alps there were also 4 of them: Guenz, Mindel, Riss and Wuerm.

I find the Ice Age very interesting traditionally the British late Middle and Late Quaternary stratigraphy was based on a threefold division of glacial stages – the Anglian, Wolstonian and Devensian – which were followed by the Hoxnian, Ipswichian and Holocene interglacials respectively.

I’m quite sure these bivalves are from the Ipswichian deposits.

[SoreBack]

These are my two favorites. I found both of these rugose corals in a Cretaceous NJ stream. They are my gifts from the glaciers.

Steve

[DE&i]

Hi Steve,

They are great finds and not easy to see in the stream I guess. I wonder which glacial stage deposited them there.

Regards,

Darren.

[Scylla]

Oh Darren,

I was soooo excited when I read the title of your post. Living on a large terminal moraine from the Wisconsin glaciation all I ever find are erratics. There are erratic boulders the size of a house, and rarely agates, garnets, schorl, and quartz crystals. Almost no erratic fossils though.

I have found the occasional Devonian coral in the NJ streams, but I'm not sure those were glacially transported. I once found a bryzoan fossil in a piece of flint/chert but it was near a native American site so was probably transported there via trade. I will continue to look though.

[SoreBack]

Hi Darren,

My best guess is that the corals I found were deposited during the Late Wisconsian glacial stage.

Steve

[ZiggieCie]

Ohio, Northern USA is full of Glacial erratic’s since we have had many glacial invasions from Canada to the north of us, the last one melting out of here Apx. 10,000 years ago. It is hard to believe that there was at one time 10,000 ft. / 3048 meters, of ice where I am sitting.

This erratic was different from the common ones I always see, most are metamorphic/granite type rocks from Canada’s north areas, 500+ miles north of the USA. This one is defiantly different.

First, I was at Barrett’s Quarry, Shelby Co, near Sidney, Ohio. This Quarry is a Silurian age, Dolomitic rock we were hunting. I saw this erratic from a hundred feet away, it is about 16 inches long and weighs a good 100 lbs. it did not belong there on the floor of the quarry. As I looked it over, I knew this was not a normal rock. It looked like it had gray Coral branches sticking out of the light color, very fine sediment that was filling in around them.

This cut in the quarry is the top level about 20 feet thick and just under the glacial till covering most of Ohio. This erratic was buried in the till and was exposed during mining and rolled down the face and waited for me to come along and take it home.

Edited December 22, 2014 by ZiggieCie

[Stocksdale]

Here' a nicely rounded glacial erratic from Chicago area.

A variety of silurian (I think) critters turned into a 'baseball'.

And another erratic was this orthocone part that my son found.

Edited December 22, 2014 by Stocksdale

[Ludwigia]

This cut in the quarry is the top level about 20 feet thick and just under the glacial till covering most of Ohio. This erratic was buried in the till and was exposed during mining and rolled down the face and waited for me to come along and take it home.

Very interesting! Any idea what the original location of it may have been or at least which geological stage it belongs to? I've been told that mine is a piece of Ordovician "grauer orthocerenkalk" (grey orthoceren limestone) from Sweden.

[DE&i]

I always pick these up for placing around the garden .And as they are erratics they are certainly worth picking up considering all the tumbling around they have done.

Bivalve

Lopha gregarea

(Animalia, Invertebrata, Mollusca, Bivalvia)

Description: Specimen of a fossil bivalve, Lopha gregarea, collected from unspecified rocks of Late Jurassic, Bathonian (?) age.

From Maxey, Lincolnshire (E England).

Lopha gregarea was an oyster with a thick, strongly ribbed shell. It attached itself to other shells with a cement-like material. This shellfish usually lived on the sea floor. It was a filter feeder, which means that it fed by filtering sea water to extract the nutrients that it needed.

It is from the Jurassic period (206 - 144 million years ago)

Lopha gregarea 1.jpgLopha gregarea.jpg

Regards,

Darren.

Another glacial erratic found as seen from the same location as this Lopha gregarea. I just can’t seem to remember its I.D. at the moment..ha ha..the words are on the tip of tongue.. Please help.

Regards,

Darren.

[Ludwigia]

If that's a Pholadomya, then that sure is a very large one.

[DE&i]

If that's a Pholadomya, then that sure is a very large one.

Roger that's the one...id been racking my brains.

Pholadomya gigantea

[DE&i]

Macrocephalites macrocephalus

(Animalia, Invertebrata, Mollusca, Cephalopoda, Ammonoidea)

Description: Two specimens of ammonites both Macrocephalites macrocephalus, originated from the Macrocephalus Zone of Late Jurassic, Callovian age (206 - 144 million years ago) from Peterborough, Cambridgeshire (SE England).

I found them beneath some Pleistocene gravels in some underlying Oxford Clay so would presume they are derived fossils.

[DE&i]

Brought down during the last ice age, dragged from the north trapped in giant ice sheets and dumped in a Cambridgeshire, UK gravel quarry. Any suggestions on some research help please @TqB for this coral, could it possibly be Cretaceous in age. I've just started to get my "eye" in on these finds and collect them for my daughter as she likes to decorate her fairy garden with them.

 

 

 

 

[TqB]

Hi @DarrenElliot, 

 

It's actually a Lower Carboniferous branching colony so quite a long way from home!

I can't see quite enough detail to be certain (it needs a grind and polish, your photos are fine) but it seems to be a Diphyphyllum, or possibly Siphonodendron without a columella. They're mainly distinguished by the way they bud so one section may not be enough. Old literature would just call it Lithostrotion which is now restricted to the cerioid (honeycomb) species.

(That one is nearly cerioid and it's entirely possible that parts of the colony were completely so, so I don't think it's a good generic character but we're stuck with it for now.)

 

Good find, would love to see some more - they occasionally crop up on the East Anglian coast and I saw one from near London a while ago so they're just about possible anywhere with glacial material.

 

 

[erose]

I also have a handful of paleozoic fossils found in the Monmouth County, New Jersey streams. They are almost certainly erratic in the sense that they are from points further north. All are preserved as hard silica. Corals, brachiopods and even a trilobite's pygidium.

 

But my favorite erratic is one I found as a youth back in Ohio. It is a nicely polished Petoskey Stone. The classic "hexacoral" fossil found typically along the shores of lake Michigan further north.  I found it in the gravel till over glacial grooves cut into the upper layers of the Brassfield Limestone near Huber Heights, Ohio. That is a suburb of Dayton, Ohio in the southwest portion of the state. The site included a few large boulders of either granite or metamorphic rock that I assumed were of Canadian origin.  The boulders may still be there but the glacial grooves were covered last time I was there. For any of you in that area this is in what is now called Tom Cloud Park above the bluff closer to the homes.

[DE&i]

11 hours ago, TqB said:

Hi @DarrenElliot, 

 

It's actually a Lower Carboniferous branching colony so quite a long way from home!

I can't see quite enough detail to be certain (it needs a grind and polish, your photos are fine) but it seems to be a Diphyphyllum, or possibly Siphonodendron without a columella. They're mainly distinguished by the way they bud so one section may not be enough. Old literature would just call it Lithostrotion which is now restricted to the cerioid (honeycomb) species.

(That one is nearly cerioid and it's entirely possible that parts of the colony were completely so, so I don't think it's a good generic character but we're stuck with it for now.)

 

Good find, would love to see some more - they occasionally crop up on the East Anglian coast and I saw one from near London a while ago so they're just about possible anywhere with glacial material.

 

 

 

Incredibly interesting @TqB especially as I’m quite sure I’ve ignored quite a few corals over the years but I’ll certainly give them some more attention. I had compared this particular coral to Disphyllum goldfussi (Geinitz) as the examples I had seen looked similar. Although they were from Devon down south and Devonian.

Edited April 29, 2017 by DarrenElliot
Typo

[DE&i]

4 hours ago, erose said:

I also have a handful of paleozoic fossils found in the Monmouth County, New Jersey streams. They are almost certainly erratic in the sense that they are from points further north. All are preserved as hard silica. Corals, brachiopods and even a trilobite's pygidium.

 

But my favorite erratic is one I found as a youth back in Ohio. It is a nicely polished Petoskey Stone. The classic "hexacoral" fossil found typically along the shores of lake Michigan further north.  I found it in the gravel till over glacial grooves cut into the upper layers of the Brassfield Limestone near Huber Heights, Ohio. That is a suburb of Dayton, Ohio in the southwest portion of the state. The site included a few large boulders of either granite or metamorphic rock that I assumed were of Canadian origin.  The boulders may still be there but the glacial grooves were covered last time I was there. For any of you in that area this is in what is now called Tom Cloud Park above the bluff closer to the homes.

 

Hi @erose sounds like a colourful place and with a great find to match. Hope someone in the vicinity can check it out.

[ZiggieCie]

8 hours ago, erose said:

I also have a handful of paleozoic fossils found in the Monmouth County, New Jersey streams. They are almost certainly erratic in the sense that they are from points further north. All are preserved as hard silica. Corals, brachiopods and even a trilobite's pygidium.

 

But my favorite erratic is one I found as a youth back in Ohio. It is a nicely polished Petoskey Stone. The classic "hexacoral" fossil found typically along the shores of lake Michigan further north.  I found it in the gravel till over glacial grooves cut into the upper layers of the Brassfield Limestone near Huber Heights, Ohio. That is a suburb of Dayton, Ohio in the southwest portion of the state. The site included a few large boulders of either granite or metamorphic rock that I assumed were of Canadian origin.  The boulders may still be there but the glacial grooves were covered last time I was there. For any of you in that area this is in what is now called Tom Cloud Park above the bluff closer to the homes.

erose, the big, 17/20 inch Coral erratic I have posted above is from only about 15 miles north of Huber Heights, near Sidney, Oh. Was your found by the Oaks quarry park.

[erose]

On April 29, 2017 at 8:32 PM, ZiggieCie said:

erose, the big, 17/20 inch Coral erratic I have posted above is from only about 15 miles north of Huber Heights, near Sidney, Oh. Was your found by the Oaks quarry park.

Not too far from there. The site was then private farm land where Thomas Cloud Park is located on the southern edge of Huber Heights. There was originally (50s-70's) a canyon like exposure of the Brassfield Formation in the wooded area between the tennis courts above and the playground below. The powers that be must have considered it a nuisance because they completely filled it in.  Last time I visited about six years ago there were a few small exposures buried in the trees along that change in slope.  I have visited several exposures of the Brassfield in the area and it was one of the most fossiliferous ones I knew. As good or better than Oaks Quarry.  Growing up on the adjacent street that was my childhood playground and where I first collected fossils almost 50 years ago.

[DE&i]

These "Trochocycathus" or " button " coral's are from Borrow Pit ( now a nature reserve ) on Buntings Lane in Peterborough. They derived from the middle Oxford clay and were found in associated glacial drift. Thought you might like to see them @TqB

[TqB]

8 hours ago, DE&i said:

These "Trochocycathus" or " button " coral's are from Borrow Pit ( now a nature reserve ) on Buntings Lane in Peterborough. They derived from the middle Oxford clay and were found in associated glacial drift. Thought you might like to see them @TqB

 

 

 

Neat little things - I mostly collect Palaeozoic ones but can't resist button corals of any age when I find them. Here's one from the Hettangian of the extreme north Yorkshire coast (where they only occur at two or three horizons - it was too muddy). They sometimes crop up as erratics further south.

Haimeicyclus ("Montlivaltia") haimei