In my fire pit

[Michelle Sawicki Library]

We pulled some rocks out of a creek to make our fire pit and this was in one of them. A big bug?

[ynot]

Not a bug.

Looks like it could have been a crinoid stalk.

Better location information is essential to an accurate id.

You do not need to tell Us long and lat, but if You could say something like east of hangoutville.

 

[Ludwigia]

+1 for crinoid. There appear to be more in the stone. Looks like dolomite to me.

[Rockwood]

There is a slim chance that it's a nautiloid shell. It is likely the mold of a crinoid stem section though. The shell like appearance may be a shadow of concretion that surrounded the actual columnals.

[Al Dente]

It looks like a coral to me. There are tiny pieces of crinoid in this rock but the segments are too irregular in the main fossil to be a crinoid. Same reason why this isn't a nautiloid.

[Rockwood]

59 minutes ago, Al Dente said:

It looks like a coral to me. There are tiny pieces of crinoid in this rock but the segments are too irregular in the main fossil to be a crinoid. Same reason why this isn't a nautiloid.

Notice how it seems to conform to the free columnal at the lower left end. Wouldn't that indicate a certain amount of diagenetic deformation ?

[TqB]

 

1 hour ago, Al Dente said:

It looks like a coral to me. There are tiny pieces of crinoid in this rock but the segments are too irregular in the main fossil to be a crinoid. Same reason why this isn't a nautiloid.

 

I agree - you can see the thin calcite tabulae when you blow it up and it's too irregular for a nautiloid.

I think it's rugose, perhaps a piece of a branching colony.

There are rugosa with very thin dissepimentaria (outer bubbly layers), something like the Devonian Thamnophyllum though that particular one doesn't occur in the USA. Gives the idea though:

 

[FossilDAWG]

I agree with coral.  Pycnostylus is a possible generic ID.

 

Don

[Rockwood]

I had a feeling this was where this might be going when I thought of these while at work this morning.

They are from the Hamburg, NY area.

[howard_l]

I think coral also, I have seen Silurian coral from Indiana that looks just like that.