Mediospirifer Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 Yesterday (Wednesday--it's now after 1AM), my husband and I went out hunting with Mikeymig (hi, Mike! Thanks for the trip!). We were looking around a steep slope of Windom shale pieces (Upper Devonian). I was mostly looking for loose brachiopods and horn corals, both of which were fairly plentiful at this site. In one area, I noticed a cluster of small corals on the path at my feet, and stopped to pick them up. One of the smaller pieces was suspiciously round.... Blastoid! It's about 1 cm wide. Mike identified it for us as Nucleocrinus. Apparently, they're rare at that site. This is a first for me. I've never found a blastoid (or a crinoid calyx) before. And if I hadn't been looking closely at my footing, I probably would have stepped on it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manticocerasman Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 Nice, great find. For an unknown reason we don’t find those in the Devonian deposits in Belgium. Kevin growing old is mandatory but growing up is optional. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrangellian Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 Nice one! Sometimes the best gifts come in the smallest packages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimB88 Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 Cool! I love seeing blastoids from other periods! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nandomas Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 Great blastoid, nice colors and preservations, thanks for sharing Erosion... will be my epitaph! http://www.paleonature.org/ https://fossilnews.org/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeepTimeIsotopes Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 That's a beauty! Each dot is 50,000,000 years: Hadean............Archean..............................Proterozoic.......................................Phanerozoic........... Paleo......Meso....Ceno.. Ꞓ.OSD.C.P.Tr.J.K..Pg.NgQ< You are here Doesn't time just fly by? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fossilized6s Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 Beauty! Congrats. ~Charlie~ "There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why.....i dream of things that never were, and ask why not?" ~RFK ->Get your Mosasaur print ->How to spot a fake Trilobite ->How to identify a CONCRETION from a DINOSAUR EGG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ridgehiker Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 Blastoids are always special. Great to find a fossil that has a lot of detail on it. Devonian ones not that common. For some reason I usually find blastoids in multiples, rarely 'just one'. They likely accumulate together via their shape, gravity, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fossildude19 Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 Mediospirifer, Congratulations on the wonderful find! You must have great eyes to have caught that! The detail on it is incredible. Well done. Regards, Tim - VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER VFOTM - APRIL - 2015 __________________________________________________ "In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." John Muir ~ ~ ~ ~ ><))))( *> About Me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mediospirifer Posted October 9, 2015 Author Share Posted October 9, 2015 Thanks, everybody! I was pleased when I got a good look at it under magnification. I agree, it is a beauty. Tim, I wouldn't say my eyes are "great", but I sharpened my pattern-recognition abilities with a lot of jigsaw puzzles as a teenager. If I know what shape I'm looking for, I'm generally pretty good at spotting it. In this case, I was looking for round rather than angular and flat, and there were two good-sized horn corals and a couple of smaller ones (similar size to the blastoid) within a square foot area. I didn't realize what it was until I picked it up! I was also looking more carefully at the ground underfoot because I knew the shelf we were walking on tended to collect fossils. We found several other cool pieces on that trip. After I get them cleaned off, I may post some more photos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ludwigia Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 Nice one! Blastoids are really something special! Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger http://www.steinkern.de/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZiggieCie Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 Knee pads ar a very important piece of fossil hunting gear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kwilson Posted October 9, 2015 Share Posted October 9, 2015 Nice find! Great detail and well inflated! Karl A. Wilson (NY Paleontology): http://bingweb.binghamton.edu/~kwilson/home.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeymig Posted October 12, 2015 Share Posted October 12, 2015 Nice pics. I'm glad I sent you down that path first. I would have walked over it. Many times I've wondered how much there is to know. led zeppelin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffrey P Posted October 12, 2015 Share Posted October 12, 2015 Big congrats. That's a wonderful find. I mostly collect Middle Devonian and haven't found one of those yet. It's very, very high on my wish list. And that's such a lovely specimen. Maybe someday I will get lucky too. In the meantime, enjoy yours. Thanks for sharing. P.S.- Would love to see your other finds as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mediospirifer Posted October 12, 2015 Author Share Posted October 12, 2015 Thanks, guys! Mike, I appreciate the opportunity to hunt with you. It was fun, and you have some really good sites! Jeffrey, we found a lot of smalls. I'm still cleaning them! I'll have to post some examples sometime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FossilHunter99 Posted October 18, 2015 Share Posted October 18, 2015 Awesome! Nice fossil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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