DizzyDogs Posted July 21, 2015 Share Posted July 21, 2015 Found this odd thing at Silver Creek by Minerich Farms in Richmond, KY on 7/20/2015. I picked it up because it is definitely unusual for the types of fossils I normally see there. There are lots of brachiopods, cephalopods and coral there, but this thing is cylindrical and looks like a big chunk of spinal column. It's almost 5" long with a 2" diameter. Anybody have any ideas what it could be? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abyssunder Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 Cephalopod " We are not separate and independent entities, but like links in a chain, and we could not by any means be what we are without those who went before us and showed us the way. " Thomas Mann My Library Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rockwood Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 Second Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auspex Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 Agreed; a nice, big, straight-shelled cephalopod. I can make out the septa that divided the chambers. Pretty cool "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FossilDAWG Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 (edited) Yep, it's a piece of a large straight-shelled (orthoconic) nautiloid cephalopod. The size and the spacing of the "septa" suggest that it might be an Endoceras. Often what one finds of this nautiloid is actually the siphuncle, a tubular structure that extended through the length of the shell, connecting the camerae (chambers of the shell) together and maintaining a connection between the older parts of the shell and the living animal at the posterior end (called the living chamber). The idea that your specimen is actually a siphuncle is supported by the fact that it has no structure that might be a siphuncle visible in the end (cross section) view. If the specimen showed the exterior surface of the shell it should have a siphuncle within it, and that should be visible in the cross-section view. If the specimen is a siphuncle, the lines crossing it at regular intervals would be the septal necks (= connecting rings), which is the point where the septa (the internal partitions dividing the shell into chambers or camerae) fused with the siphuncle. Don Edited July 23, 2015 by FossilDAWG 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DizzyDogs Posted July 22, 2015 Author Share Posted July 22, 2015 Wow! This is exciting! I have a couple of cephalopods, but they are quite a bit smaller, so I didn't realize they could be this big. Thanks for the responses! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auspex Posted July 22, 2015 Share Posted July 22, 2015 That one is not just big, it was really big! Your fossil seems to be of the internal structure called s siphuncle; the critter would have been a whopper. "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FossilDAWG Posted July 23, 2015 Share Posted July 23, 2015 Here's an illustration to indicate what I was trying to describe. Remember that my suggestion that your specimen is an Endoceras siphuncle is just that, a suggestion. It is hard to really see all the useful elements of a specimen from one or two photos. Don Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DizzyDogs Posted August 2, 2015 Author Share Posted August 2, 2015 Oh, good golly! Just found another one!!! I found some other little bits that I suspect may be cephalopod parts, but I was done for the day and on my way back to the car. Then I happened to glance over and see this bad boy submerged in the shallow water at the edge of the creek. I wasn't sure where to post, but I wanted to show it off next to the smaller one I found a few weeks ago!!! I couldn't even wait for it to dry off before I posted the picture! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ludwigia Posted August 2, 2015 Share Posted August 2, 2015 Nice catch! These things could get quite large: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endoceras Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger http://www.steinkern.de/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Herb Posted August 4, 2015 Share Posted August 4, 2015 (edited) Nice fossils. Every thing within 50 miles of Richmond is Ordovician in age. You might find the KY Paleontological Society site interesting, also the Dry Dredgers. Edited August 4, 2015 by Herb "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"_ Carl Sagen No trees were killed in this posting......however, many innocent electrons were diverted from where they originally intended to go. " I think, therefore I collect fossils." _ Me "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."__S. Holmes "can't we all just get along?" Jack Nicholson from Mars Attacks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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