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Adam's Cambrian


Tidgy's Dad

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On 5/21/2019 at 7:37 AM, Tidgy's Dad said:

:d_good_luck:

Thanks, I think it worked, we've made the plans and booked the camping site, so I guess I'm going to the Kootenays in August! I don't yet know any details about the sites or how many of them we'll get to go to. (There will be some old mine sites also, I understand)

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57 minutes ago, Wrangellian said:

Thanks, I think it worked, we've made the plans and booked the camping site, so I guess I'm going to the Kootenays in August! I don't yet know any details about the sites or how many of them we'll get to go to. (There will be some old mine sites also, I understand)

Sounds very exciting! :popcorn:

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  • 11 months later...
On 5/25/2019 at 12:43 AM, Wrangellian said:

Thanks, I think it worked, we've made the plans and booked the camping site, so I guess I'm going to the Kootenays in August! 

Hey, Eric, just caught up on a couple of your posts re this trip. Liked the stromatolite piece. Find much else nice that you haven't posted? 

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I recently won a rather marvelous auction lot from @Kasiawhich included some pieces with several species of Olenid trilobite from the Upper Cambrian Alum Shale Formation of Sweden. 

This first one is from Brantevik, Southern Sweden and contains lots of cranidia of what i think is Leptoplastus crassicornis.  They range from 2 to 6 mm wide. 

Don't seem to have a photo of the whole piece but it's just black shale, about 11 by 5.5 cm with some sparkly bits. I can't see the trilos properly without magnification. 

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Well, Scott, I used that excellent paper you linked for me https://paleoarchive.com/literature/uploads/Henningsmoen1957-TrilobiteFamilyOlenidae.pdf and this was what I came up with. Would you agree, he asks hopefully. @piranha

And @Johannes, any thoughts?

Thanks. 

 

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The next three bits, two in black shale and one in a grey limestone, are from a different locality, Raback, Vastergotland, Sweden, but are from the same Alum Shale Formation and also Upper Cambrian. 

The grey block is 8 cm long at its widest. 

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In the shale piece on the right are some trilobite cranidia, many of them very squashed indeed, I've only photographed the best ones, the biggest being 5 mm across. The first one particularly looks quite nice and is perhaps Peltura, but not certain at all. 

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The grey piece also contains lots of cranidia but also librigenae (free cheeks) from what I believe to be Peltura scarbaeoides. 

This first one is easily the biggest at 6 mm wide.

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This last photo also seems to show partial cranidia of two other species that I'll be showing from the third rock in a while. 

 

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But first a couple of free cheeks from the piece above : 

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The final piece of bituminous shale features my favourites from this latest batch of Swedish trilobites. I posted these on the ID sub-forum and with help managed to get somewhere. They're all very small with the biggest being only 3 mm across but they're beautifully black and shiny because of phosphatic preservation. 

Here's one of each of the two olenid species present in this rock and you can see part of one in the last picture I posted of a Peltura cranidium above.

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Scott compared them to those in a very useful paper on olenids that he linked for mehttps://paleoarchive.com/literature/uploads/Henningsmoen1957-TrilobiteFamilyOlenidae.pdf

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Picture 21 is Sphaerophthalmus alatus and figure 18 is Ctenopyge angusta. 

The linked paper is also very useful as it shows the ranges of all the different species of these genera and also the other species that they are found associated with. And S. alatus and C. angusta don't seem to be found together so I did some research using other papers linked by Johannes and some i found myself including a nice one from 1901 that specifically talks about the Raback Quarry and lists S. alatus and Peltura scarabeoides as being found there and sometimes in association, but I am aware that some species have been split and/or renamed since this time. 

So, I think that the third one may be Ctenopyge affinis, which is often found associated with the other two and is on the same page as C. augusta in the first paper.  

What is also interesting to me is that many of the described species are only known from thousands of cranidia and sometimes librigenae and bits of genal spine. Mostly the pygidia have never been found or are very rare. 

 Anyway, I'm absolutely delighted with mine, as they're pretty much equal quality to those shown in the papers and books, so thanks again @Kasia

 

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So, here's my guesses at which ones are Ctenopyge affinis (two subspecies are described but I'm unsure enough as it is, same with two possible subspecies of Peltura scarabeoides!) 

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In the specimen below you can see where the occipital ring is broken where the little axial spine was attached :

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And these next ones I think are possibly, maybe, tentatively Sphaerophthalmus alatus.

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Seem to be bits of genal spine in the picture above and the one below. And cranidia of the two species.

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And again, both species? 

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I'm having so much fun with this last piece of Upper Cambrian Alum Shale stuff from Raback, Vastegotland, Sweden. 

It's packed with fascinating fossils.

Here's some more trilo bits, an interesting cranidium and a spine which, as it's quite long, could be from Sphaerophthalmus.

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Lots of bits! : 

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Some librigenae ( free cheeks) :

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Couple of decent sized genal spines, maybe from Sphaerophthalmus.

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And a weird thing:

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How could I have not looked through this thread before?! Great stuff Adam! I don’t have any Cambrian specimens yet so I’m a little :envy:

 

I’m headed over to check out your Silurian thread next. ;) 

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40 minutes ago, FossilNerd said:

How could I have not looked through this thread before?! Great stuff Adam! 

I’m headed over to check out your Silurian thread next. ;) 

Thanks, Wayne, glad you like what I have here. :)

Until a couple of weeks ago, I hadn't posted anything new here for nearly a year, so the thread was lost in the depths of the Collections sub-forum. 

I'll be posting a phosphatocopid here next, didn't know what they were until one was pointed out to me in the rock above. 

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Here it is, a phosphatocopid, pointed out to me in this photo by @Johannesso thank you very much for that. 

This group are only known from the Cambrian and were originally considered to be ostracods, but they're not, different anatomy and the shell is phosphatic rather than calcitic as in ostracods. And ostracods aren't known for certain before the Ordovician. So these are very early crustaceans. 

After an awful lot of reading and learning new things, and because of the three nodes, I'm leaning towards this being Falites fala, but I'm far from certain. 

Tis about 2 mm wide.

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Another specimen showing the other side of the valve with a noticeable doublure 

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Tried to get a scale with this one :

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I'm not sure if this is another one in the centre of this photo, or if it's just a bashed up fixigena :

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  • 2 weeks later...

When I started to become an active member of this incredible forum, two and a half years ago, my oldest brachiopod fossils, part from a lone, self collected, Late Cambrian Lingulella, were several also self-collected specimens from the Hirnantian, uppermost Ordovician of Northern England. I had also lost my love of brachiopods somewhat, and was concentrating more on echinoderms and especially trilobites.( Both of which I still love, of course).  

But then thanks to trades, auctions, a couple of purchases and the overwhelming generosity of TFF members, I soon acquired a nice selection of older Late Ordovician and then late Middle Ordovician brachiopods which helped rekindle my love of these extraordinary and often overlooked creatures.  Next, Ralph @Nimravis, kindly sent me an early Middle Ordovician specimen which became my new oldest articulate brachiopod. :b_love1:

Then, at Christmas, I opened a competition prize which included an Early Ordovician species. And another present,from wifey (chosen by me) with two species of brachiopods from the beginning of the Middle Cambrian, my oldest yet by far! Wow! Yay.gif.c1d5b988d4989d1b4bceb9f58c0d122d.gif

These are from the Embalse del Luna, Leon, Spain, from the upper part of the Lancara Formation, its upper member and more specifically the Barrios Fascies. So, these are well over 500 million years old, slightly older than the Burgess Shale! 

 

Equally exciting is the group to which they belong. Brachs are split into three recognized Subphylums, the inarticulate Linguliformea and Craniiformea and the articulate Rhynchonelliformea which include two well-known classes that contain most of the groups we know so well; Class Strophomenata (strophomenids, productids etc.) and Class Rhynchonellata (orthids, pentamerids, atrypids, athyridids, rhynchonellids, spiriferids, terebratulids and a few others). 

But, back at in the Palaeozoic, there were three other classes, early groups that are less well known. One of these was the Class Kutorginata, which had a simple hinge structure and no pedicle opening, as such, as the pedicle emerged from a space between the two valves. 

This Class contains two superfamiles, each with a single family and here I have a species from each! 

I will do a separate post on each, but here they are together, on the left, two specimens of Nisusia vaticina and on the right, Yorkia zafrensis. :i_am_so_happy:

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So this is Yorkia zaphrentis :

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This is Nisusia vaticina. 

You can find these in several places on the net listed as Eoorthis primordialis, but I believe this to be incorrect. 

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Interesting. If those are slightly older than Burgess, then you've got me beat by that much, as I've got one brach from Burgess (I think you've seen it in my recent topic on the stages). But these look more like the typical later brachiopods and preservation, though perhaps a little more primitive and irregular in appearance. I guess they evolved to become more elaborate and refined, in a lot of cases, later on. 

I gather the Brachiopods originated during the Tommotian. I wonder if it's even possible to acquire one of those!

 

EDIT: Wait, I've still got you beat... I've got a couple Lower Cambrian brachs. Let me find them and I'll show you.

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11 hours ago, Wrangellian said:

Interesting. If those are slightly older than Burgess, then you've got me beat by that much, as I've got one brach from Burgess (I think you've seen it in my recent topic on the stages). But these look more like the typical later brachiopods and preservation, though perhaps a little more primitive and irregular in appearance. I guess they evolved to become more elaborate and refined, in a lot of cases, later on. 

I gather the Brachiopods originated during the Tommotian. I wonder if it's even possible to acquire one of those!

 

EDIT: Wait, I've still got you beat... I've got a couple Lower Cambrian brachs. Let me find them and I'll show you.

Yes, I think it wonderful how often brachiopods evolved the same external shapes. 

One of these looks like a rhynchonellid, the other like an orthid, but the beaks and pseudointerareas are different and the articulation facets as well, if we could see them. 

This lot became extinct and left no descendants, so similarities are convergent evolution in action! :)

Look forward to being jealous over your Early Cambrian specimens. :drool:

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The oddities of the Cambrian, when things were primitive and experimental.

I can see online where you might have gotten those specimens... I'm tempted to grab some examples for myself.

Here are my Early Cambrian ones. Both are apparently Mid-Dyeran (Stage 4) according to sources, but from quite different locations.

1. Mickwitzia occidens, Chambless Ls, Marble Mtns, California. Coin is 19mm.

2. is my self-sound example from the site near Fort Steele B.C., maybe a smaller example of the same, Mickwitzia sp? In amongst all the olenellid trilobits. Tougher to get a good photo, it's only about 4 or 5mm in size. I should try for another photo with the right white-balance setting :wacko:

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16 hours ago, Wrangellian said:

 

1. Mickwitzia occidens, Chambless Ls, Marble Mtns, California. Coin is 19mm.

2. is my self-sound example from the site near Fort Steele B.C., maybe a smaller example of the same, Mickwitzia sp? In amongst all the olenellid trilobits. Tougher to get a good photo, it's only about 4 or 5mm in size. I should try for another photo with the right white-balance setting :wacko:

Those are really nice, I must get some Chinese brachs for my collection. 

Thanks for posting, Eric. :)

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44 minutes ago, Wrangellian said:

Are there Chinese Early Cambrian ones available?

No idea. 

Cambrian sometimes, but I haven't checked which stages. 

Life's Good!

Tortoise Friend.

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