Sidetracked in the garage again

[Plantguy]

Hello Gang. I'm not sure if fossiling takes your focus off what you should be doing like it does me but yesterday I was supposed to be clearing an area out to make space for an upcoming wood working project. Well that exercise turned more into opening boxes and looking at fossils stored there and reliving why I had brought some of them home. It was a good thing and a bad thing! 

 

As many of you know the Tamiami formation has a boat load of invertebrate species and its fairly easy to acquire a bunch of material quickly so here are several shots to share with you all of some of the variants I've brought home over the past several years---Sarasota County, Plio-Pleistocene.

 

There are occasionally also some pretty nice shark teeth that you can run across in the various spoil finds.  Here are several of the common types I've found..Mako, Tiger, Meg and Carcharhinus sp. types...

There are a number of barnacles and I'm fascinated by the different types but its the associated attachments that they are found on that really gets my eye. I believe here's a Ceratoconcha sp. group that has latched on to a good sized bone fragment and a Chesaconcavus sp. on a coral branch. 

I've picked up lots of damaged shells and here are two gastropods with showing what I believe are some type of shell repair. The larger one somehow survived the massive damage..I've read about how crabs have sometimes inflicted these wounds so if thats the case the crab must have been fairly good sized one. The smaller guy has some small damage near the tip of the spire and along the aperature. 

I'm intrigued by just general shapes and coloration differences so here's a few examples of some gastropods Neverita sp. and Chesapecten sp. that came home.

The last shot is my favorite from the day...a Vasum (Hystrivasum) that has sponge boring damage, a good sized Balanus  sp. growing on the spire and if you look close you can see small boring clams still in their bore holes on the top left of the specimen just beneath the barnacle. 

All for now. Hope you enjoy. Back to woodworking! LOL. 

 

Continued hunting success to you all! 

Regards, Chris 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kane]

You fell into the rabbit hole, I see.  I could think of worse things to be sidetracked by. Those shells are exquisite - many thanks for sharing!

[RJB]

Nice shells

 

RB

[MikeR]

Hi Chris

 

I have the same problem.  Case in point I have to pass through my office to get to the garage where the lawn mower resides.  Obviously I did not make it.  In case you were wondering about the identifications, starting with the barnacles

 

Tamiosoma advena Zullo, 1992

Chesaconcavus tamiamiensis (Ross, 1965)

Pliculofusus acutus (Emmons, 1858)

Hindsiclava antelesidota Mansfield, 1930

Neverita duplicata (Say, 1822)

Chesapecten madisonius (Say, 1824)

Hystrivasum locklini (Olsson & Harbinson, 1953)

 

The Florida Chesapecten is of particular interest as I have yet to decide what I want to call them.  In the FLMNH most of them are called C. jeffersonius although as Roger Portell has told me no one has performed a systematic study of the Tamiami Chesapecten found in Bed 11.  C. jeffersonius is a Lower Pliocene guide fossil yet a survey of Bed 11 by Buck Ward shows that most of the molluscan fauna correlates with Zone 2 Yorktown.  Buck tends to think of them as hybrids between C. madisonius and C. septenarius both Upper Pliocene guide fossils.  C. madisonius is very variable in the number of ribs from different Zone 2 Yorktown localities in North Carolina from 9 ribs on the Roanoke River to 19 on the Tar River.  Those on the lower end of the rib count I have called C. madisonius carolinensis (Conrad, 1873).  Probably the best analysis comes from the Smithsonian's Thomas Waller, the worlds preeminent expert on Pectinida who writes extensively about Bed 11 in his paper (Journal Paleontolgy 70 (6):pp 941-946) on Eastern Pacific/Western Atlantic similarities in the Crassadoma (Pectinidae) considering the Bed 11 Chesapecten as a primitive form of C. madisonius.

 

Mike

 

[SailingAlongToo]

The 2 smaller Pectens definitely look like C. jeffersonius or C. septenarius.

[MikeR]

15 hours ago, SailingAlongToo said:

The 2 smaller Pectens definitely look like C. jeffersonius or C. septenarius.

 

Yes if they had T-shaped ribs we could call them Chesapecten septenarius, but they don't.  Below on the left is Chesapecten madisonius from the Rushmere Member site on the Roanoke River in NC where we both have collected and it occurs along with C. septenarius as do the Florida species.  On the right is C. madisonius from the Tar River also from the Rushmere.  That is why rib number on Chesapecten cannot be used to define species but scaliness can be.  As Waller wrote, he believes that the Florida species is a primitive form of C. madisonius and is supported by the associated fauna.  Otherwise we would have to assume that C. jeffersonius ranged into the Upper Pliocene which Dr. Chesapecten and others are not willing to do.

 

 

[Plantguy]

On 6/17/2017 at 8:55 AM, Kane said:

You fell into the rabbit hole, I see.  I could think of worse things to be sidetracked by. Those shells are exquisite - many thanks for sharing!

 

On 6/17/2017 at 10:16 AM, RJB said:

Nice shells

 

RB

Thanks guys! I do spend way too much time looking at this stuff but its all good. LOL. Usually the prep is minimal if they have any matrix attached to them at all.   Regards, Chris 

[Plantguy]

On 6/18/2017 at 7:42 PM, SailingAlongToo said:

The 2 smaller Pectens definitely look like C. jeffersonius or C. septenarius.

Thanks for looks and triggering the discussion. 

 

On 6/19/2017 at 11:17 AM, MikeR said:

 

Yes if they had T-shaped ribs we could call them Chesapecten septenarius, but they don't.  Below on the left is Chesapecten madisonius from the Rushmere Member site on the Roanoke River in NC where we both have collected and it occurs along with C. septenarius as do the Florida species.  On the right is C. madisonius from the Tar River also from the Rushmere.  That is why rib number on Chesapecten cannot be used to define species but scaliness can be.  As Waller wrote, he believes that the Florida species is a primitive form of C. madisonius and is supported by the associated fauna.  Otherwise we would have to assume that C. jeffersonius ranged into the Upper Pliocene which Dr. Chesapecten and others are not willing to do.

 

 

Thanks Mike for the ID's and the explanation/insight on Chesapecten. Those 3 specimens I showed earlier were APAC spoil finds. I also have this other form from further south in Sarasota County. The first picture shows its relative size and textures next to one of those 3. I'm presuming its C. septenarius ? I picked it up several years ago while looking for shark teeth as it struck me as different having an irregular rib size/pattern and it had some deformation that I thought was really interesting (just above and to the right of the barnacle scars). 

Thanks again for the expertise. Regards, Chris 

[bitterlily]

What does this mean, T Shaped Ribs? 

[Megalodoodle]

I can’t clean my garage without opening boxes of mineral/fossil specimens! Then I realize that i’ve spent 3 hours looking at specimens and give up.