What is this?

[Miocene_Mason]

Hello everybody,

So a few months ago outside of McCoys ferry, the first time I had done so. The ultimate prize was a trilobite since they are quite rare in this outcrop. After some intense searching I found what I thought to be a trilobite fragment, however now I'm not to sure. Is this a trilobite or a horn coral or something else?By the way this is Mahantango shale of the givetian epoch of the mid-Devonian period. I tried to do some amatuer prep work with a scribe to see if any other fragments were hidden within the matrix but there was not. Let me know what you guys think.

[Pemphix]

Fotos are to blurry to tell something - sorry...

 

Best regards,

Pemphix

[Fossildude19]

Hard to see any details, but my first thought was a spiny brachiopod imprint.  

Better pictures may help.

 

[Miocene_Mason]

Okay, I'll see if I can get some better photographs.

[Miocene_Mason]

@Fossildude19 As to the spiny brachiopod, the white lines are where I removed sediment with a scribe. This shale turns a white color when scratched. I will try to provide an outline in further pictures.

[Miocene_Mason]

[Fossildude19]

41 minutes ago, WhodamanHD said:

@Fossildude19 As to the spiny brachiopod, the white lines are where I removed sediment with a scribe. This shale turns a white color when scratched. I will try to provide an outline in further pictures.

 

I got that,  ... but the little holes look like where the spines might have been.

I can't find any examples online, but I have one or two I will try to find and take pictures of.

@Shamalama

 

 

[Kane]

These holes look a bit odd. A bit deep and straight on as opposed to following the "grain" of the brachiopod. You might consider doing an image search for Spinatrypa. I am seeing ridges and striations here that might more strongly suggest brachiopod impression as stated above.

[Plax]

impression of a crinoid calyx?

[EMP]

9 hours ago, WhodamanHD said:

 

I take it back, it's not a trilobite. Probably just a brachiopod internal mold from a Devonochonetes sp.

 

 

[Kane]

I think you mean Eldredgeops rana. The holes look a little too deep for it to be an eye impression (they are more like softer, rounded bumps), and too far spaced to be an impression of the pustular glabella. Compare with @GerryK's very helpful thread that details the difference between Phacops and Eldredgeops, but also shows the finer, up-close details of the glabellar and eye features.

 

 

[Pumpkinhead]

Sometimes I find that weathered colonial rugose corals can leave a pattern similar to that

[Pumpkinhead]

I can't find a perfectly exemplary specimen as I typically don't take the weathered ones home but hopefully the attached picture will give you an idea of what I'm talking about. Each corallite is about 1 cm wide. My specimen shows the "convex" bottom of the corallum while from what I can tell Whodaman's specimen appears to be the "concave" shaped top. The holes in the middle could be representative of the columella.

 

I'm not entirely sure what the scale of the other pictures are but my gut feeling is that the object in question may be too large to be representative of the glabella of Eldredgeops rana and, as Kane said, too widely spaced. Hope this helps.

 

[Miocene_Mason]

Here's a U.S. Dollar next to the specimen for scale, sorry I forgot it. Thanks all for your input and for the little self-confidence boost of a possible identification  identification of the trilobite frag! If it's a coral it would be the first of heard of from the site, here as rarely a trilobite fragment is found. To my knowledge, a full trilobite has never been found here and is still the prize.