Clearfield, Pa - Fossil or Not

[married2rick]

Found these rocks off route 80 in Clearfield, Pa.

Lots of shale in Clearfield.

1st pic is a piece of shale I split open. The "fossil" is about the size of a golf ball, little bigger.
2nd pic is of 2 spherical pieces that are a red color vs the common slate colored shale. Sizes less than 2" in diameter.

Fossils or not?

Edited March 21, 2016 by married2rick

[married2rick]

Here is the 2nd pic.

[Darktooth]

I am not an expert but I think the objects in pic#2 are just nodules of some sort. As far as pic one it could be a fossil. I remember looking at some horseshoe crab fossils from somewhere in pa that looked similar. Though I am not claiming that is what they are. If I remember correctly I think it was on fossilguy.com. but it was a long time ago I'm not sure.

[e-wing]

I'm not sure about the first pictures, it may be something but I don't know what. The second ones are iron concretions, and alone are not fossils. Take a hammer and try to split them open, and you may find some fossils inside! Hit them on the narrower side, and they should preferentially split along the plane any potential fossil is in.

[pinkus]

I thought concretion also. I remember going to Clearfield when I was a PSU student. There used to be an old prison where there would be punk rock shows every once in a while. It was my all time favorite music venue.

[Fossildude19]

Brenda,

I have no idea on the first item - I would hang onto it though.

Not sure of the age of the strata there - Pennsylvanian or Mississippian, I would guess.

As far as the concretions,... I would take a different approach, and try the Freeze/Thaw method..

Regards,

[prem]

I wonder if the first item is a concretion still buried in the shale?

---Prem

[sTamprockcoin]

I used to live & collect in that general area (Altoona-State College) and frequently saw these. One of the guidebooks to mineral collecting actually listed a locality for collecting concretions in Tyrone. Most in this area (in my experience) are formed around a mineral center of calcite/barite/siderite/limonite/geothite sometimes with nice cyrstalization. I've split open a few that had a bit of oily carbonaceous "goo" that flouresced blue and fairly quickly evaporated. Use a HEAVY hammer and a sharp chisel, and wear eye protection! Every concretion is like a grab bag christmas present.

[married2rick]

I chipped away at some of the layers and took this side view. They shale broke away easily without damaging the *concretion* / *fossil*.

I'll attached one more pic. Next post.

[married2rick]

This should be a better pic than the original pic.

Fossil dude 19 - what is the freeze/thaw method? Something I should do on the concretions?

[Peat Burns]

That is very neat. It might be a fossil. I wouldn't do anything that might damage it until you get some feedback on what it might be. I'm leaning fossil on the item in your most recent pics, although some minerals can have deceiving plate like structures like that.

Edited March 24, 2016 by Peat Burns

[Rockwood]

That has to be a fossil. Suppose it's some sort of operculum ?

[Fossildude19]

I think that it is too circular/oval shaped to be an opercular plate.

I wouldn't rule out rhizodont fish scale.

Regards,

[married2rick]

Thanks Rockwood, I googled operculum but none of the images seem to look like what I have. More important, you have put a word into my fossil vocabulary that wasn't there before and I really place a lot of value in that!

Now Tim.... Tim, Tim, Tim (lol) you are quite tallented at this whole fossil thing. lol. When I googled rhizodont fish scale I couldn't believe how similar the images were with what I held in my hand! I found this image on lifebeforethedinosaurs.com website. How do I figure out if the area in Clearfield Pa is in the Mississippian epoch of the Carboniferous Period? This still confuses me.

It's possible that one of the top predators in the Bear Gulch was a colossal rhizodont called Strepsodus. Scales of this fish found in the Bear Gulch Limestone were up to 6 cm in diameter. Huge, especially for fish scales, and would point to Strepsodus being a massive fish:

Lund, Richard, and Grogan, E.D., 2005 Bear Gulch website,
www.sju.edu/research/bear_gulch, accessed by lifebeforethedinosaurs.com on
11-27-2011, page referenced last updated 02-01-2006.

[Archie]

Rhizodont scales are the most common fossils I find and somehow it never even crossed my mind that that's what this could be until Tim suggested it. At first I was a bit doubtful because most of the ones I find have concentric rings on one side and a grid like pattern on the other but looking over my collection I have a few that are pretty featureless like this one and also quite concave, I'm still not 100% sure it is a rhizodont scale but its definitely a possibility. The largest rhizodont (and freshwater bony fish) known was Rhizodus hibberti which could get up to 7m!

Edited March 25, 2016 by Archie

[abyssunder]

Definitely looks like a Rhizodont fish scale. Nice find!

[Fossildude19]

Thanks Rockwood, I googled operculum but none of the images seem to look like what I have. More important, you have put a word into my fossil vocabulary that wasn't there before and I really place a lot of value in that!

Now Tim.... Tim, Tim, Tim (lol) you are quite tallented at this whole fossil thing. lol. When I googled rhizodont fish scale I couldn't believe how similar the images were with what I held in my hand! I found this image on lifebeforethedinosaurs.com website. How do I figure out if the area in Clearfield Pa is in the Mississippian epoch of the Carboniferous Period? This still confuses me.

It's possible that one of the top predators in the Bear Gulch was a colossal rhizodont called Strepsodus. Scales of this fish found in the Bear Gulch Limestone were up to 6 cm in diameter. Huge, especially for fish scales, and would point to Strepsodus being a massive fish:

Lund, Richard, and Grogan, E.D., 2005 Bear Gulch website,

www.sju.edu/research/bear_gulch, accessed by lifebeforethedinosaurs.com on

11-27-2011, page referenced last updated 02-01-2006.

Brenda,

Yes, the Freeze/Thaw method is a slow but proven method for opening up nodules.

The basics can be found in THIS THREAD.

I reversed black and white on your picture:

I can see faint concentric lines in areas, and centrally based, outwardly radiating lines\striations.

Looks like worn fish scale ornamentation, I think.

I think this is a Rhizodont scale.

As far as figuring out what age the sediments are where you found this, that is a bit more involved.

Let me write something up, as I can't do it at the moment, - I have to get ready for work.

Happy to help, as always.

Kind regards,

Edited March 25, 2016 by Fossildude19

[PA Fossil Finder]

How do I figure out if the area in Clearfield Pa is in the Mississippian epoch of the Carboniferous Period? This still confuses me.

One way I like to use to find at least the general age and geology of the area is the USGS interactive map. Click on wherever it was you were hunting, and it should give a formation name or two that is present in that area. It isn't always accurate, but it can at least help with finding the age of the rocks in the area.

[Fossildude19]

PA Fossil Finder's way is much quicker than my method.

According to his link, (which works very well) the area surrounding Clearfield looks to be Pennsylvanian in age, and specifically, the Allegheny Formation.

Usually, I will find out where the person found the item.

Then I look at Google maps to see what county it is in, and where in the state it is located.

Then I find a Geologic Bedrock map for that state, and try to match the place within the Geologic map to see what sediments are there.

Then once I figure that out, I Google the heck out of any formation names I can glean from that info.

Hope that helps. Regards,

[weygtya]

Sista, I do believe we need to have a yearly (or more) Clearfield trip. Since I do not get there to ride 4 wheelers anymore.. I'd love to go for fossils. No husbands though. Love ya!