Mystery fossils from the Upper Cambrian

[aek]

Last weekend decided to drive down to Missouri to catch the solar eclipse and look for some fossils in the Upper Cambrian Davis formation. My time was pretty limited so was only able to check out a couple different spots for short periods of time. 

 

 

Lots of worm burrows, disarticulated trilobites and weird trace fossils.  The shale was pretty dusty so it was difficult to see what I was looking at in the field. I feel like I barely scratched the surface. Here's an interesting one with what looks like a long genal spine and water ripples (?). My understanding is this was a back reef lagoon surrounded by a microbial reef and the St Francois mountains were islands during the Cambrian.

 

 

Not sure what's going here.... any ichnologists out there?

 

 

Another plate with a lot going on. There are some small tracks on the middle far right..

 

 

Trilobite parts...

 

 

 

Possible Cliffia lataegenae cephalon? Hard to tell for sure after half a billion years...

 

 

Thanks for looking and for any insight!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Miocene_Mason]

I'm not very skilled in this area, forgot the proper name for this, but it looks like a trilobite track.

Cruziana! That's what it's called...

[doushantuo]

Funnily enough.Whodaman neglects to mention the possibility of Rusophycus

[Beth929]

Thanks for sharing. Cool stuff!

[Miocene_Mason]

9 hours ago, doushantuo said:

Funnily enough.Whodaman neglects to mention the possibility of Rusophycus

 

Dang it! Forgot that one.

[doushantuo]

no worries

[aek]

Thanks guys. I found the pic on the right from the Kentucky Paleontology Society site and placed next to mine. They look very similar. They have it listed as a "trace fossil from the same formation as Rusophycus" http://www.uky.edu/OtherOrgs/KPS/pages/research.html

[piranha]

21 hours ago, aek said:

Possible Cliffia lataegenae cephalon? Hard to tell for sure after half a billion years...

 

 

The frontal area of Cliffia lataegenae is too narrow.  

Instead, Burnetiella alta appears to be the best match. The pygidia match well with Elvinia roemeri, a prolific trilobite in the Davis Formation.

 

 

 

figure of Burnetiella alta from:

 

Westrop, S.R., Poole, R.A., & Adrain, J.M. (2010)

Systematics of Dokimocephalus and related trilobites from the Late Cambrian (Steptoean; Millardan and Furongian Series) of Laurentian North America.

Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, 8(4):545-606  PDF LINK

[doushantuo]

Beautiful pix & fossils,AEK!!

 

[aek]

7 hours ago, piranha said:

 

 

The frontal area of Cliffia lataegenae is too narrow.  

Instead, Burnetiella alta appears to be the best match. The pygidia match well with Elvinia roemeri, a prolific trilobite in the Davis Formation.

 

 

 

figure of Burnetiella alta from:

 

Westrop, S.R., Poole, R.A., & Adrain, J.M. (2010)

Systematics of Dokimocephalus and related trilobites from the Late Cambrian (Steptoean; Millardan and Furongian Series) of Laurentian North America.

Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, 8(4):545-606  PDF LINK

Thanks @piranha I appreciate the ID's and the link! 

42 minutes ago, doushantuo said:

Beautiful pix & fossils,AEK!!

 

Thanks @doushantuo!