Yet another Weird echinoderm

[Malcolmt]

Honestly I seriously thought about not posting this find from yesterday. I did not want any of you thinking that the fossil gods where being grossly unfair. But then I decided that in all likelihood most of my comrades here on the forum will never have seen one of these, never mind one this is pretty much as good as you find them.  Promise not to submit it for IPFOTM.

 

Four of us were out collecting splitting a lot of rock and excavating near the area that I found those two amazing Astrocystites a few weeks ago (August Invertebrate Fossil of the month) After a very unproductive 5 hours two of my friends gave up and headed home leaving the two regular diehards (Myself and J.) Seeing as no one had found anything of note splitting rock in the blast piles, we both decided decided to work on excavating the wall about 25 feet from the area that produced the astrocystites and a wealth of other cystoids and edrioasteroids. After about 8 hours of wall excavating J. was rewarded with a gorgeous complete extra large pleurosystites. As for myself I somehow once again lucked out finding this spectacular Amygdalocysties florealis. Only a few of these are found each year at this site and rarely are they as complete as this. 

 

This is a class of echinoderms known as paracrinoids. There are only two species represented in southern Ontario the Comarocystities and this one the amygdalocystites. These only occured in the Ordovician. I guess they were a failed experiment.  This specimen was found at the top of the BobCaygeon formation.

 

Here is what they look like...... very weird........ but cool

 

 

 

Believe it or not I spent about 5 hours prepping this with 40 micron dolomite, .015 nozzle and 18 PSI. Here is the before picture. I actually knew what it was in the field because of the distinctinve pattern of the plates. I aslo could see that it had a stem and at least one arm in the field. I had to field douse it thoroughly in Cyano as it looked like it was ready to flake off the plate at the slightest tough. 

 

Here it is as found.... (not much to look at)

 

Here it is prepped

 

 

The finished creature is 35 mm x 20 mm wide

 

The whole plate which also has a small crinoid on it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ludwigia]

Persistence pays off, Malcolm! Well done! It really has been a great couple of months for you.

[Kane]

Wow!

 

So now we know it wasn't just an isolated death pool. Given how much work that went into getting this one out, I wouldn't think it was just luck! 

 

Fantastic work on the prep, too. This might be your year!

[ynot]

Another great find! Thanks for sharing these strange pieces.

[Malcolmt]

Kane it was on the west wall above the pool about 5 feet down about 15 feet in from the north edge of the water, so exactly the same layer as we were excavating when you were there. That is across the pool road from our excavation site. (about 25 feet from original excavation) K. spent an hour on our original site and only found broken bits of pleurocystites. I spent a 1/2  hour in our spoil pile and again only found broken pieces. So we cleaned the pocket out good that other weekend.

 

 J. found a beautiful pleurocystite about 10 feet south of me on the same wall. I also found a nice crinoid calyx and a 3/4 ventral pleurocystite. I also have an unknown that I have not prepped yet but it is an echinoderm of some type.

[Fossildude19]

Way to go, Malcolm!

Congratulations on another stunning find.

Regards,

[Bullsnake]

That is just spectacular. Thank you for showing!

[Bullsnake]

Out of left field here, but it's funny how those 'star-like' plates resemble modern freshwater bryozoan.

[JohnBrewer]

What a find. The prep is fantastic. 

[Malcolmt]

17 minutes ago, Bullsnake said:

Out of left field here, but it's funny how those 'star-like' plates resemble modern freshwater bryozoan.

 

Nature seems to like hexagons and pentagons. I guess they make for good fractal shapes....

[FossilDAWG]

Another amazingly rare find!  Beautiful! 

 

Don C

[RJB]

You seem to be finding some really neato stuff!

 

RB

[crabfossilsteve]

Way to go Malcomt.  Those paracrinoids are soooo cool especially when complete.  Years ago when I made regular trip up to the Brechin area and east to Belleview I managed to find a number of them.  One plate from the Lafarge quarry had three complete ones along with two edrios and a couple of crinoids.....a wow plate.  Boy I miss the smell of limestone in the morning.  Find some more!

 

Steve

[Malcolmt]

Steve, that must have been a killer plate, unfortunately we can no longer get into the Lafarge quarry. As in the USA the quarries are very reluctant to let anyone in because of liabilitly issues or unless you commit to some type of paid lease with them which can be just too expensive for the weekend enthusiast

[jewelonly]

Congratulations, @Malcolmt! Having come late to the party of learning about paracrinoids, it is fascinating to see examples of them, and yours is lovely. Beautiful prep work also!  

 

Leah