Fruiting body?

[KimTexan]

4 hours ago, bone2stone said:

You know, it is Hammon's. (Senior moment) My wife and I  have been eating there off and on for a very long time.

I'll be out there Saturday maybe catch breakfast prior to hittin the show.

I'll bring a few items. Some I have posted here.

 

Fossilmania has certainly gotten larger since the 80's.

It was more of a cozy affair at "Oakdale Park", but when we started sitting up outside, it was time to go to something with a little more elbow room. 

 

Kim, sorry to hijack your post. I am going to bring some finds that are rather unique.

Bring some things you want ID'd. Some pro hands on by people who know what they are talking about.

That is one reason Fossil Mania came together to begin with.

LOL That's OK. I hadn't been keeping up with the post, because I kind of thought it had come to a close. My browser on my phone opened up somewhere around meeting at Hammon's and  "I'd like to buy you a beer" and I got really confused. The last I remembered you were asking about Fossilmania and I thought the conversation had taken a really strange twist without any input from me. I had to backtrack a bit to gather the context.

Context in conversation and fossils is very helpful.  LOL

[erose]

On 10/11/2017 at 11:31 PM, KimTexan said:

 

What do you mean when you say the site barely preserves echinoids? I have dozens of urchins. Granted they're mostly the little heart shaped ones, but I do have a reasonably nice ornate one the size of a small orange.

 

Oh! we need to see that ornate regular urchin. There are at least two dozen species of echinoids known from the Glen Rose Formation. Some are very rare, some are only found low in the formation, others higher up and some run thru almost the entire section. I do know there is a different mix down here in South-Central Texas versus the northern section but there are still quite a few to be found.  If you have one of the Cidarids that would be awesome and the source of much envy.

 

PS Nice ammonite. Is it from the Glen Rose Formation? 

 

Erich

[KimTexan]

Thank you.

I honestly have not learned my formations. Learning them is definitely on my agenda though. 

The 2 ammonites and the urchin were found maybe 30 -40 min NE of the town of Glen Rose.

I went looking for the urchin the other night, but couldn't find it. I've recently moved and it is still packed somewhere. I don't believe it is the species you mentioned though. I have an old photo of it that isn't the best quality. See that below.

[erose]

1 hour ago, KimTexan said:

 

Holy Mollies...You have one of the coveted "Cidarids!"  Not perfect, but even one like that will get most of us going. There are two identified species from the Glen Rose and a few others from other formations.  Loose plates or spines are not uncommon but whole specimens are. 

Quote

 

 

[KimTexan]

Hum, I remember trying to ID it from online pics when I found it and I thought it was something else, but I'm no expert.

I actually found it laying on top of the ground in scruffy weeds and grass as I was walking along. I believe it had fallen from the road cut embankment I was near and been washed down into the grass about 20 feet downhill from the embankment.

That would be cool if that is what it is. I need to unpack my stuff and find it.

I plan to come down to Fossilmania. Maybe someone can confirm the ID there. If I find it I'll post few more pics.

[bone2stone]

1 hour ago, KimTexan said:

Hum, I remember trying to ID it from online pics when I found it and I thought it was something else, but I'm no expert.

I actually found it laying on top of the ground in scruffy weeds and grass as I was walking along. I believe it had fallen from the road cut embankment I was near and been washed down into the grass about 20 feet downhill from the embankment.

That would be cool if that is what it is. I need to unpack my stuff and find it.

I plan to come down to Fossilmania. Maybe someone can confirm the ID there. If I find it I'll post few more pics.

OMG it is a Cidarid!!!!! It's a little rough but without a doubt VERY RARE!

I have only handled two intact in the 30+ years I have been picking.

That is the most spectacular echinoid you could have found!!!

Congratulations, I would REALLY like to handle that specimen!!

Please-please-please bring it with you to fossilmania.

Plenty of people would like to examine that one. I hope Steven crane will be there, he is very up on his Cidarids.

[KimTexan]

This is the formation I found it in. See screenshot below. I'm not sure what you call it for short, maybe Duck Creek formation but it looks complex. I was at a higher elevation or top most layer of it. It might be 30-40 min NE of Glen Rose.

[KimTexan]

I've found a lot of good size ammonites out there in the same layer. They're generally 10-18 inches in diameter.

I was looking and very close to the spot is Edwards Limestone too. I think the description may fit Edwards better than the other. I'll have to find the description for the other formatio and read it and compare.

[bone2stone]

Well now you have me confused, (Like that's hard to do).

I thought you were in the Glen Rose material or Walnut one of the two.

The Georgetown members are known to yield them.

 

There are others here on the forum that know their echinoid stuff maybe they will post here on this subject.

 

Personally I have never found much more than just partials and spines from cidarids

My bits and pieces came from the Main Street, Grayson and Duck creek material.

I've seen a few but not many intact. The best I have seen was found by Ken Smith (Dallas Paleo Member "RIP") many years ago.

I believe his was Leiocidaris (spines and all)

 

Cidarids although rare here in the fossil record they are much more common in many of the European deposits.

They are still a living species in many oceanic areas around the world.

 

Your ammonite looks to be older than the Edwards material but not out of the realm of possibility.

It looks like a Pachydiscus, they can be found up around the lake Texoma area.

Other deposits yield them but Texoma is known for them.

[KimTexan]

I was born in Cleburne and lived in Keene for years. I went to college in Keene for part of my degree. So I wasn't far from Glen Rose. I have been out in the Glen Rose area fossil hunting a few times, but most of my hunting has been around Lake Whitney, the Brazos River and tributaries to the Brazos.

I didn't know what formations those where in till I looked it up last night from a link @BobWill shared with me. I pinpointed the place on the map and it's right near where Edwards and the complex formation given above meet. The road cut embankment  looks like a cross section through a reef with crystalline limestone that is kind of nodular.

This is a link to Lance Hall's site where he has The Geology of Texas posted. The third paragraph in the linked page is a pretty good description of what is in the formation where I found it.

http://www.northtexasfossils.com/edwards.htm

I can take you to within a meter of where I found that echinoderm. I found it in March of 2011 I think. It is an area I have combed over many times. I don't live in the area anymore, but I still own property less than a mile from there. The same general area was my stomping grounds in college. I use to go hiking all around there on the weekends. The general area is definitely a complex mix of formations as shown in that screenshot.

The oysters with exquisite detail are in shale less than a mile from where I found the urchin and the area the oysters are in fits the complex formation mentioned first. So the area definitely has Edwards and other formations there.

Whether those types of echinoderm have been found in those formations I couldn't tell you. 

Below is another screenshot of the geology of the area. The grayish margins around waterways is Edwards in this area. The darker green is the complex Kwl formation. I was half a mile or more from the waterway so I thought I must have been in the Kwl formation. On the bottom left of the pic is a tiny sliver of bright green that you can hardly see which is the Glen Rose formation.