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Help with ID. Bone or Coral?


cr8ve

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Hello everyone. I am new to your site. Came across you all while doing a Google search to identify a find today. I am not an avid fossil hunter, just a beach comber. After spending sometime on Google and then searching several of your forum posts I have been unable to find an answer. Some friends think I have found a bone, others say fossilized coral.

 

Here is what I can tell you:

Found along the York River shoreline during low tide (west of the Coleman Bridge)

Was not attached to anything but simply lying on top of the sand about 3-4' out from the marsh grass.

It is heavy.

 

btw: I did not know I picked up a shell with a living snail it - which attached itself to the barnacle during transport. You may be happy to know I returned it to the shoreline. Yes, I am one of those who puts spiders outside too instead of stomping on them as well.

 

Sorry about the hand pics. Noticed you all recommend not including hands for scale purposes (after taking said pics).

Thank you in advance for any insight you may provide!

Bone or coral 1 32017.jpg

Bone or coral 2 32017.jpg

Bone or coral 3 32017.jpg

Bone or coral 4 32017.jpg

Bone or coral and other finds 32017.jpg

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Hi and welcome to the forum.

 

It's definitely a colonial coral - the fourth photo in particular clearly shows the individual corallites with radiating septa.

 

Someone familiar with the area will probably be able to say if it's fossil or modern.

Tarquin

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Welcome to the forum!

I believe that this is a modern coral. I may be wrong, just my gut instinct.

Keep looking! They're everywhere!

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This is a Miocene fossil site similar to the Calvert Cliffs formations. It is indeed a scleractinian coral. The barnacal is most likely a fossil, and there is a piece of the MD state fossil there too.

This little fellow has a similar story :)

IMG_2962a.jpg

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39 minutes ago, Rockwood said:

This is a Miocene fossil site similar to the Calvert Cliffs formations. It is indeed a scleractinian coral. The barnacal is most likely a fossil, and there is a piece of the MD state fossil there too.

This little fellow has a similar story :)

IMG_2962a.jpg

 

This is fascinating! Thank you. I think I just went from beach comber to fossil addict in one post. It's 20 some degrees outside and after reading your post I am ready to venture out. ; )

I took some additional pics of the Ecphora gardnerae  (Googled MD state fossil) and the barnacle. I wondered about the barnacle since quick research showed 4 barnacle types found in VA and it is much larger than those. 

5 million years on the ecphora?! Is it common to find these in tact and loose? How old do you think the barnacle is? 

IMG_5260.JPG

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The age you have is correct, early Pliocene.

Jasper Burns in his book Fossil Collecting in the Mid-Atlantic States lists barnacle finds as Balanus concavus. I can't confirm this for yours though.

He list Septasstrea marylandica for corals. The same applies for my confirmation.

 

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22 hours ago, cr8ve said:

 

This is fascinating! Thank you. I think I just went from beach comber to fossil addict in one post. It's 20 some degrees outside and after reading your post I am ready to venture out. ; )

I took some additional pics of the Ecphora gardnerae  (Googled MD state fossil) and the barnacle. I wondered about the barnacle since quick research showed 4 barnacle types found in VA and it is much larger than those. 

5 million years on the ecphora?! Is it common to find these in tact and loose? How old do you think the barnacle is? 

IMG_5260.JPG

 

Cr8ve,

 

Hello from another central/eastern Virginian.

 

Just for general information; the "type location" for one of the Members of the Yorktown Formation is there on the cliffs in Yorktown, VA, right bank, near the Coleman Bridge. Specifically, it's below the old Moore House, thus the name Moore House Member of the Yorktown Formation, which is Upper Pliocene in age. It is still partially exposed in Yorktown from Cornwallis Cave to the Moore House. Below the Moore House Member are the other Members of the Yorktown Formation: Morgarts Beach, Rushmere and Sunken Meadow. The original description of the Yorktown Formation was given by Clark and Miller, 1906, but did not clearly designate a "type" location. However, their description did include similar stratigraphic beds along both the York River and James River. Since the beds at Yorktown are almost completely inaccessible due to installation of rip rap, sloping and vegetation, Ward and Blackwelder designated a "lectostratotype" for the Yorktown Formation near Rushmere on the James River in 1980.

 

If you haven't taken a stroll down the beach at Chippokes State Park (Surry County, VA), you should, It's a very nice 2.75 mile round trip walk with the beach covered in fossils (shells, random cetacean bone and a few sharks teeth.)

 

Cheers,

 

SA2

Don't know much about history

Don't know much biology

Don't know much about science books.........

Sam Cooke - (What A) Wonderful World

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3 minutes ago, SailingAlongToo said:

 

Cr8ve,

 

Hello from another central/eastern Virginian.

 

Just for general information; the "type location" for one of the Members of the Yorktown Formation is there on the cliffs in Yorktown, VA, right bank, near the Coleman Bridge. Specifically, it's below the old Moore House, thus the name Moore House Member of the Yorktown Formation, which is Upper Pliocene in age. It is still partially exposed in Yorktown from Cornwallis Cave to the Moore House. Below the Moore House Member are the other Members of the Yorktown Formation: Morgarts Beach, Rushmere and Sunken Meadow. The original description of the Yorktown Formation was given by Clark and Miller, 1906, but did not clearly designate a "type" location. However, their description did include similar stratigraphic beds along both the York River and James River. Since the beds at Yorktown are almost completely inaccessible due to installation of rip rap, sloping and vegetation, Ward and Blackwelder designated a "lectostratotype" for the Yorktown Formation near Rushmere on the James River in 1980.

 

If you haven't taken a stroll down the beach at Chippokes State Park (Surry County, VA), you should, It's a very nice 2.75 mile round trip walk with the beach covered in fossils (shells, random cetacean bone and a few sharks teeth.)

 

Cheers,

 

SA2

 

Good Morning and thank you for the additional enlightenment. I just stumbled upon another member's post this morning about the Yorktown Formation and was literally on Google searching for additional info. Are there any books/articles or even threads here you recommend for further study on the YF?

 

I am familiar with Cornwallis' Cave but haven't been in there since a grade school field trip though it is only a stone's throw from where I live. Is there a map you can cite for Morgarts Beach, Rusmere and Sunken Meadow? Until this morning I am unfamiliar with those places/names.

 

I have not been to Chippokes but will definitely check it out. We did take a trip up to Westmoreland State Park last summer and found a few fossils besides shark's teeth. I will have to do some research and see if I can figure out what they are and then post. Finding this forum has sparked additional curiosity.

 

Thanks again!

 

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1 minute ago, cr8ve said:

 

Good Morning and thank you for the additional enlightenment. I just stumbled upon another member's post this morning about the Yorktown Formation and was literally on Google searching for additional info. Are there any books/articles or even threads here you recommend for further study on the YF?

 

I am familiar with Cornwallis' Cave but haven't been in there since a grade school field trip though it is only a stone's throw from where I live. Is there a map you can cite for Morgarts Beach, Rusmere and Sunken Meadow? Until this morning I am unfamiliar with those places/names.

 

I have not been to Chippokes but will definitely check it out. We did take a trip up to Westmoreland State Park last summer and found a few fossils besides shark's teeth. I will have to do some research and see if I can figure out what they are and then post. Finding this forum has sparked additional curiosity.

 

Thanks again!

 

 

I think this will give you a great start researching about the "science" of the Yorktown Formation, as well as most of the Coastal Plains stratigraphy. After all, with sea level rise and fall (or "transgression / regression" events as Dr. Ward calls it), can/will happen again. There is a reason the 140 foot tall cliffs at Westmoreland State Park that are ~50 miles from the ocean, have marine fossils in them almost to the top.

 

https://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/1482d/report.pdf

 

Happy Reading. Moore House Member of the Yorktown Formation starts on Page 49.

Don't know much about history

Don't know much biology

Don't know much about science books.........

Sam Cooke - (What A) Wonderful World

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