Arizona Chris Posted June 15, 2017 Share Posted June 15, 2017 Hi all, We do qute a bit of microfossil study of what is usually specimens dissolved out of a limestone matrix. But these were obtained in a most unusual way. There are areas in north eastern Arizona near Show Low that are in the Twowells tongue of the Dakota formation. On one of our recent expeditions, we found a low hill composed not of the usual sandstone and shales, but of limestone. We found on top scored of giant ant hills several feet in diameter. The ants had dug down deep in to the earth and pulled out not only the usual gravels, but quite a few fossils too! We spent hours going over the abandoned ant hills with magnifier and tweezers and even took home bags of the scrapings from the sides for later examination. We found tons of tiny complete sharks teeth, ray/skate teeth, fish bone, black sideritized gastropods and brachs, and some really interesting forams. Tons of them. They look like chains of spheres, and internally they are rolled up like dough in crescent roll. Here is an image with close up camera and a mm scale. I know nothing about forams. Can any one tell me anything at all about these interesting finds? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Arizona Chris Paleo Web Site: http://schursastrophotography.com/fossiladventures.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpc Posted June 15, 2017 Share Posted June 15, 2017 I can't say much about them but cool finds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Dente Posted June 15, 2017 Share Posted June 15, 2017 Do you see an opening on one of the ends of these? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miocene_Mason Posted June 15, 2017 Share Posted June 15, 2017 Are you sure they are foraminifera? Sharks create spiral coprolites. “...whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.” ~ Charles Darwin Happy hunting, Mason Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doushantuo Posted June 15, 2017 Share Posted June 15, 2017 Not saying it is,but in the Reophax ,Arenobulimina or Gaudryina mode Forammike might know Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arizona Chris Posted June 15, 2017 Author Share Posted June 15, 2017 That would have to be some minnow sized sharks! The forams are coiled up inside on the broken ones, you can see a spiral pattern inside like a triticites. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Arizona Chris Paleo Web Site: http://schursastrophotography.com/fossiladventures.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rumi Posted June 16, 2017 Share Posted June 16, 2017 These are specimens of a species of Ammobaculites, a genus ranging from the Carboniferous to Recent. This is one of the arenaceous genera in which the growth pattern changes: it starts forming close-coiled chambers, then switches to a uniserial pattern. I can clearly see this in your specimens -- the end which is slightly smaller in diameter has a few coiled chambers, then switches to uniserial. This genus contains many species, and without specimens to measure and examine I can only hazard a guess as to what species this may be. Frizzell's Handbook of Cretaceous Foraminifera of Texas lists and illustrates 24 taxa. The large size and small number of coiled chambers in your specimens suggests A. torosus Loeblich and Tappan, 1949, from the Comanchean Walnut Clay, Lower Cretaceous. I don't know if the micropaleontology of the Twowells Tongue has been studied, but will try to do some research to find out. Maybe we can track these down! They are really excellent specimens! I'm in Phoenix, and occasionally get to Payson, should you wish to get together at some point. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rumi Posted June 16, 2017 Share Posted June 16, 2017 I forgot to check Mike's wonderful website, stupid me! Here is a link to his image of A. torosus: http://www.foraminifera.eu/singlesi.php?no=1006846&aktion=suche If you compare this with his other images of Ammobaculites you will see that most taxa in the genus are more coarsely agglutinated than your specimens. Hope these posts help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doushantuo Posted June 16, 2017 Share Posted June 16, 2017 Rumi ,there have been loads of IWAF symposia. Not saying you are wrong,but how old is the Frizell source? Edit,found it.1954 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arizona Chris Posted June 16, 2017 Author Share Posted June 16, 2017 Thanks Rumi - I can send you a bunch if you like, I have so many of them! But I must admit, the ants did all the work... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Arizona Chris Paleo Web Site: http://schursastrophotography.com/fossiladventures.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foram-Mike Posted August 3, 2017 Share Posted August 3, 2017 Sorry for the late comment. I agree with Rumi on the ID as agglutinated forams having an initial coil and then adding chambers uniserially. Ammobaculites is most likely the genus. As Rumi suggests a search for most of the specific literature would help to get an idea, how professionals ID them. Such a search for literature may be time-consuming and cause some costs. So from my point of view it is only worthwhile, if the whole matrix is at hand, from which an assemblage is extractable. I view it anyhow as the fun part in microfossils to have an assemblage and not isolated fossils. It allows to think about the environment, depth, geological time, correlation to other outcrops ... What might be expected from the Dacota FM outcrop, you may see from a Cret. outcrop in Europe, we worked upon: http://foraminifera.eu/locdebe.php?locality=Hoever Note that there are also huge agglutinated forams, which may be picked from the ground, in our case not extracted by ants but washed out by rain. In case someone would like to work on the Dakota FM in such a way, please contact me via PN 1 Foram-Mike, Owner of www.foraminifera.eu So far we show 12000+ images of foraminifera online for free Send us your images, samples and specimens to enlarge our coverage Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arizona Chris Posted August 4, 2017 Author Share Posted August 4, 2017 Interesting. But I still like the ants to do all the work! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Arizona Chris Paleo Web Site: http://schursastrophotography.com/fossiladventures.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now