Adam's Ordovician.

[Peat Burns]

7 hours ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

And I'm not sure if this species has now been reassigned to Catazyga erratica anyway. though seems different to me. @Peat Burns

The piece also has various bits of

Adam, I'm not sure, but does your specimen have enough costae to be consistent with Catazyga erratica?  And too many to be Zygospira modesta?  Unfortunately, I'm shut-in at home and away from my books.  Everything is closed due to -19 deg. F temps and -40 deg. F wind chills.  Brrrrrrr!  <10 minutes exposure = frostbite!

[Tidgy's Dad]

44 minutes ago, Peat Burns said:

Adam, I'm not sure, but does your specimen have enough costae to be consistent with Catazyga erratica?  And too many to be Zygospira modesta?  Unfortunately, I'm shut-in at home and away from my books.  Everything is closed due to -19 deg. F temps and -40 deg. F wind chills.  Brrrrrrr!  <10 minutes exposure = frostbite!

Keep warm, my friend! 

I don't have info on Catazyga erratica that I can find, but, yes, usually Catazyga seems to have a lot, but if it was known as Zygospira erratica as shown here then mine doesn't seem to have enough. 

 

I guess then, that Zygospira modesta is a better fit, though i can't find it listed for the location, though it does occur in the Formation elsewhere. It has 7 to 9 primary plications either side of the fold. mine seems to have as many as 16 but some are secondary plications. 

Hmmmm.

[Peat Burns]

49 minutes ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

 

Hmmmm.

Exactly. 

 

Wouldn't it be nice if our favorite fossils were shark teeth or something like that?  These brachs can be real stinkers to ID confidently. 

[Tidgy's Dad]

7 hours ago, Peat Burns said:

Exactly. 

 

Wouldn't it be nice if our favorite fossils were shark teeth or something like that?  These brachs can be real stinkers to ID confidently. 

Shark's teeth? PAH ! ! ! 

Well only Paleozoic ones, maybe. (Actually, I'm quite fond of shark's teeth! )

If you get a chance, Tony could you have a quick look back over the rest of this page and say what your thoughts are on the brachiopods and ids shown above?

Thanks a lot, your opinion is valued, as ever.

[Peat Burns]

4 hours ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

Shark's teeth? PAH ! ! ! 

Well only Paleozoic ones, maybe. (Actually, I'm quite fond of shark's teeth! )

If you get a chance, Tony could you have a quick look back over the rest of this page and say what your thoughts are on the brachiopods and ids shown above?

Thanks a lot, your opinion is valued, as ever.

Adam, they all look reasonable to me.  Although I will say that unless I am intimately familiar with the formation, I can't verify specific epithets.  I'd have to slave over the literature .

 

Were you able to get some display cabinets built for your collection?

[Tidgy's Dad]

Just now, Peat Burns said:

Adam, they all look reasonable to me.  Although I will say that unless I am intimately familiar with the formation, I can't verify specific epithets.  I'd have to slave over the literature .

 

Were you able to get some display cabinets built for your collection?

Erm, no, not quite yet.

Glad you think my ids are at least reasonable. And I've been spending many happy hours slaving over the literature.

Still got some wrong, i expect. Though i know a couple are correct. Lovely beasties.  

[Peat Burns]

11 minutes ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

Erm, no, not quite yet.

Glad you think my ids are at least reasonable. And I've been spending many happy hours slaving over the literature.

Still got some wrong, i expect. Though i know a couple are correct. Lovely beasties.  

I actually love working on them and the thrill when one has confidently identified one.  I so love the quality and "thoroughness" of the old literature.  I added some new ones the other day (Syringothyris sp., Brachythyris suborbicularis, Cleiothyridina obmaxima, and C. incrassata from the Keokuk of Iowa). 

 

Once I dig out of the mound I have to tentatively ID (will it ever happen?), I want to start sectioning some of them for better certainty.

 

I think you have a better grasp than I in terms of the broad diversity.  I'm still collecting and learning them site by site  (and repetition helps!).

[Tidgy's Dad]

On 1/30/2019 at 11:18 PM, Peat Burns said:

I actually love working on them and the thrill when one has confidently identified one.  I so love the quality and "thoroughness" of the old literature.  I added some new ones the other day (Syringothyris sp., Brachythyris suborbicularis, Cleiothyridina obmaxima, and C. incrassata from the Keokuk of Iowa). 

 

Once I dig out of the mound I have to tentatively ID (will it ever happen?), I want to start sectioning some of them for better certainty.

 

I think you have a better grasp than I in terms of the broad diversity.  I'm still collecting and learning them site by site  (and repetition helps!).

Yes, that's what I'm doing, site by site learning. Great fun though often rather confusing. 

I have now decided that that Mimico Creek specimen may be a small Onniella sp, or the like as this is recorded in the Georgian Bay Formation, though some of the species have been reassigned to Heterorthina and Cincinnetina , but I at least think it could be a Dalmenellid, seems to fit. 

Oh, @Monica

Here is my current idea. In part thanks to the pages you sent me from Hessin's 2009 book, very helpful.

[Tidgy's Dad]

These specimens are also somewhat problematic. 

The first one is pretty small, only 9 mm wide. 

I have the positive and negative and this one is back to being from Etobicoke Creek. 

The negative is a bit better :

And a bigger brachiopod. This one 1.4 cm across :

I think they all originally might have had a long straight hinge-line, they all have lots of very fine costae, so i'm not very confidently going for what is listed in most of the books as Sowerbyella puntostriata, which would now appear to be a junior synonym of Sowerbyella curdsvillensis. (see the last page for more examples of this genus from  the Cummingsville Formation.) Another species of Sowerbyella will be the next specimen I show. 

Thanks again @Monica This is all great fun! 

 

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Also from Etobicoke there occur layers of a finer and slightly green mudstone/ siltstone which in this case seems to hold far more abundant and better preserved brachiopods. 

This rock is about 6 cm across and contains lots of really lovely Sowerbyella sericea. 

Thanks again to @Monica

Here's a close up. This specimen is 1.9 cm wide. 

 

 

[ynot]

Turning into quite a collection there Adam.

So many nice pieces too!

[Tidgy's Dad]

17 hours ago, ynot said:

Turning into quite a collection there Adam.

So many nice pieces too!

Thanks, Tony! 

Plenty more Ordovician stuff to come, it's quite my favourite period.

Some folk may remember the lovely coral colony that @Herb sent me from the Drakes Formation of Versaille, Kentucky.

Now, I happened to notice a whole nest of tiny brachiopods buried in the matrix on the underside of this fossil. 

You can just about make out some of them, particularly on the left side of the photo below :  

So, out with the Stanley knife and hacked three of the little fellows out. 

Then pin prep time. 

Here are the results, Zygospira modesta, the biggest one is 5.5 mm across.

First specimen :

Second Specimen :

Third specimen :

Pedicle view (scale in inches, or rather 16ths :

Commisure view :

Side view :

 

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Here is one from the Upper Ordovician Whitewater Formation of Flatfork Creek, Warren County, Ohio kindly sent to me by doleful Doren @caldigger

This is Rafinesquina alternata, a little smaller at 4.5 cm across the hingeline than some of the R. ponderosa specimens found here and having an equal length and width while R ponderosa is slightly wider than long. And R. alternata is said to be more common in this formation. (citation needed). However, many specialists will now say that these species are actually the same and that would make this R. ponderosa with R. alternata becoming a junior synonym. 

It won't be lonely as my only specimen from here though, as it has encrusting bryozoan, Atactoporella schucherti and an inarticulate brachiopod, Petrocrania scabiosa (great name!) as epibionts. This genus, like other stophomenids, did not anchor using a pedicle, but instead lay flat on a silty/ muddy substrate which many other organisms including other brachiopods couldn't exist in so easily as they couldn't fix themselves to the fine sediment. Instead other creatures grew on the valves of the wide, flat productids. Wonderful. 

Pedicle valve, convex. You can make out the epibionts fairly well.

Here is the concave brachial valve. Notice the hinge line.

The superficially similar genus Strophomena has the reverse in that it has a concave pedicle valve and a concave brachial valve with the hinge line showing in the pedicle valve view. (see my specimens elsewhere  on this thread) 

Detailed look at the hinge line :

And on the pedicle valve side :

And a lateral view, the thing is only 8 mm thick. 

 

 

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

There are three subphylums of brachiopods; the rhynchonelliformea containing all the articulate brachiopods, the inarticulate linguliforms  and the craniiformea which have an unsupported lophophore and are always cemented to hard surfaces, rocks and very often brachiopods. 

Petrocrania scabiosa is a representative of this group. 1.4 cm at it's widest point.

Close ups :

[Tidgy's Dad]

There are many encrusting bryozoa in the Whitewater formation and they are difficult to tell apart without sections, but judging from the low monticules and their spacing and the tightly packed and polygonal separating walls yet rounder openings in the zooecia, I am leaning towards Atactoporella schucherti.

 

 

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

These next couple are from the Mount Auburn Formation of Maysville, Kentucky and are again thanks to the ever generous Doren. @caldigger

I love these as they are orthids, but look more like spiriferids at a time when the spiriferids were not yet an important group. 

These are Vinlandostrophia ponderosa ponderosa (until recently Platystrophia ponderosa but that genus is now only used for some Baltic species, much like as happened with Orthoceras.

The American ones from the Upper Ordovician and Lower Silurian are now placed in Vinladostrophia, from Vinland, an old Viking word for the continent they found. 

Specimen 1; the bigger one on the left :

And specimen 2 :

[Tidgy's Dad]

While I was going through the next bag of brachiopods from Doren, from the Maquoketa Formation, I founf that one of them was not the same as the others. 

So I cleaned it up (overdid it a bit, actually ) and, sure enough, it was another Sowerbyella sp. Now Sowerbyella minnesotensis does occur in this formation, but I think it more likely that I cleverly got it mixed up and it was actually in the bag with the Sowerbyella from the Cummingsville Fm. Again.

This one's just a very thin pedicle valve.

Still, it's very lovely, 1.1 cm x 0.8 cm.

This picture, though rather blurred, shows the depth of the shell better, only 2 mm!

So thin, it's translucent!

Thanks once again, Doren.

@caldigger

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Another case of overprepping, I'm afraid. 

I'm getting a bit carried away with my pin vice work. 

These brachiopods were far more fragile than they looked. 

Sorry, Doren. @caldigger

They're Paucicrura corpulenta from the Maqouketa Formation, Upper Ordovician, about 445 mya and from Greenleafton, Minnesota.

The one on the left was already a bit battered, but bits of the edge disintegrated, the middle one was okay and the one on the right had a chunk knocked out of the edge when i pressed too hard to remove a lump of matrix. Lesson learnt, i hope. 

What a shame I took that bit out of the edge, this one's really lovely. 

Interesting commisure.

And the little one :

[Tidgy's Dad]

Here's a little brachipod sent to me by Ralph. @Nimravis

It's rather special to me for a couple of reasons. 

Firstly, it's from the Kunda Stage of the Llanvirn Series, the lowest part of the Middle Ordovician and thus the oldest 'articulate' brachipod in my collection, though i do have a lingulid from the Cambrian. I have a few brachs from the later Middle Ordovician and shed loads from the Upper Ordovician, but this little orthid is the oldest.

Secondly, it's from Koporye in Russia, not my first Russian fossil, but my first Russian brachiopod. 

Here is Lycophoria nucella.

 

[doushantuo]

Owning Ordovician brachiopods makes for an essental contribution to modern human mental health.

I just wonder: my posting tends to somewhat erratic,at times

Our National Health Service policies do NOT cover Ordovician brachiopods,sadly

I 

Nice one,Adam!!!

[doushantuo]

As a prime example of the perplexing phenomenon mentioned above

 

MadisonRubel2010Lycophoria.pdf

Paleontological Journal, 2010, Vol. 44, No. 2, pp. 129–139.

Family Lycophoriidae (Brachiopoda) from the Ordovician of Baltoscandia
A. A. Madison and M. Rubel

[Tidgy's Dad]

25 minutes ago, doushantuo said:

As a prime example of the perplexing phenomenon mentioned above

 

MadisonRubel2010Lycophoria.pdf

Paleontological Journal, 2010, Vol. 44, No. 2, pp. 129–139.

Family Lycophoriidae (Brachiopoda) from the Ordovician of Baltoscandia
A. A. Madison and M. Rubel

Thanks for that, Ben. 

Interesting. 

The Treatise updates only go up  to 2007 and I hadn't seen this. 

So the id is correct but it may not be an orthid. 

Not sure that taxonomy is at all good for ones state of mind, but having Ordovician brachiopods certainly helps mine. 

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Sometimes when i venture out to buy a potato, I pick up a trilobite as well, as you do. 

Cheap as chips, hence the potato reference. 

Here are a few I've picked up over the last couple of months. 

They seem to have smooth pygidial flanks, so would be Colpocoryphe grandis. 

Scale is in inches. 

The little one at the bottom does have a cephalon but it's tucked right down flat in front of it. 

Bless.

Note the smooth pygidial flanks unlike those in the otherwise similar Flexicalymene ouzregui. 

 

 

 

 

[doushantuo]

That's one of the few trilo's i've got at home,bought on the local market.

Think it was 2,50 Euro,or something like that.

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

47 minutes ago, doushantuo said:

That's one of the few trilo's i've got at home,bought on the local market.

Think it was 2,50 Euro,or something like that.

 

Yes, these and Flexicalymene ouzregui are pretty common in this condition. 

I picked these up for between 1 and 3 euros each, they're even cheaper down south sometimes.