Worm tubes?

[MSirmon]

Found this curiously textured Rick yesterday. Upon cleaning it noticed some interesting items embedded in the side of it. Also curious what causes the texture on this type rock. Are they work tubes? Could the white item coming out of the rock be a worm? Found north of Crosbyton, TX.

[BobWill]

Possibly, or more likely burrows. I can't tell what all the little creatures are in there. Maybe cephalopods or even coprolites. Closer views of each might help. @mikecable? Anything like this out your way?

[ynot]

I think it is a hash plate that is mostly composed of crinoid and bryozoan with a ew other things in it.

Your "white worm" looks like a weathered crinoid stalk.

Tony

[westcoast]

The white object in the last image is an oblique section across a crinoid pleuricolumnal. 

[Rockwood]

The composition of the shape in the lower photos definitely says crinoid something. 

I agree with Bob's ideas on the upper ones.

[GeschWhat]

I was hoping someone with way more knowledge than me would definitively know what the ichy looking things on the surface are. It is definitely an intriguing piece. I'm with Bob, to me they do look like some type of burrow or perhaps the whole thing is an internal cast of something. I have seen a lot of interesting sponge posts lately...something I know nothing about. Could the whole thing be some sort of internal cast of a sponge of some sort? Perhaps the little steinkern looking things are from mollusks that fed on it after it died and then were trapped? Just pondering out loud (or should I say in writing) 

 

Any chance you have a microscope, and we can get some microscopic images of some of the features? Definitely interesting, what ever this is!

 

 

 

 

[Rockwood]

I bet it is, a sinistrally coiled planispiral gastropod.

Unless those faint shapes inside are septa ? 

[MSirmon]

3 hours ago, GeschWhat said:

I was hoping someone with way more knowledge than me would definitively know what the ichy looking things on the surface are. It is definitely an intriguing piece. I'm with Bob, to me they do look like some type of burrow or perhaps the whole thing is an internal cast of something. I have seen a lot of interesting sponge posts lately...something I know nothing about. Could the whole thing be some sort of internal cast of a sponge of some sort? Perhaps the little steinkern looking things are from mollusks that fed on it after it died and then were trapped? Just pondering out loud (or should I say in writing) 

 

Any chance you have a microscope, and we can get some microscopic images of some of the features? Definitely interesting, what ever this is!

 

 

 

 

Lori,

 

Unfortunately no microscope handy but am definitely open to suggestions. Up until now I have been privately referring to it as the potato but like your phrase and may start calling it "The Itchy Potato".

 

Michael

[GeschWhat]

23 minutes ago, MSirmon said:

Lori,

 

Unfortunately no microscope handy but am definitely open to suggestions. Up until now I have been privately referring to it as the potato but like your phrase and may start calling it "The Itchy Potato".

 

Michael

  That would be ichy (as in ichnofossil).

[MSirmon]

LOL  apparently my phone doesn't  like spelling ichy 

[abyssunder]

Maybe there's a differential weathering on a geodised specimen containing cronoid fragments and other 'things'. I think, the lamellar ones protruding the matrix are purely geological crystall walls formed through diagenesis, but I could be wrong.