round walnut looking rocks

[Peat Burns]

25 minutes ago, jpc said:

Are you anywhere near Casper?  If you get a chance, bring in to the Tate Museum.  Seeds/cones are not known from the Morrison, so I doubt they are plant fossils.  I am betting on crystal growths of some kind.  Until you said 'not heavy', I was going to suggest barite nodules, but they are really heavy.    We have paleontologists and geologists who could have a look at these and give you some sort of educated guess or real answer.  

It looks like there are at least seed cones in the Morrison 

 

Morrison fm. Cones

 

I think I have some seeds reportedly from the Morrison.  I'll have to check.  Got me curious now.

[Peat Burns]

5 minutes ago, Peat Burns said:

It looks like there are at least seed cones in the Morrison 

 

Morrison fm. Cones

 

I think I have some seeds reportedly from the Morrison.  I'll have to check.  Got me curious now.

Here's what I have from Morrison, including Araucaria that @Auspex mentioned.

[Tidgy's Dad]

Here are some piccies of cones from the Morriison I took off the net for comparison :

 

Scale bar 1cm, and below more compared to a modern cone :

[john h dalton]

Right in the same location,probably 1/4 is where i have found a large number of gastroliths. I dont know if the significants of them being together means anything or not but I always thought maybe. In my mind Dinos eat a bunch of these things (i was still thinking a nut of some kind) got poisoned by them  then died. lol Who knows? could happen..lolol 

[john h dalton]

10 minutes ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

Here are some piccies of cones from the Morriison I took off the net for comparison :

 

Scale bar 1cm, and below more compared to a modern cone :

thats pretty cool! a couple of them look real similar on the outside but not at all alike on the inside.  Im really surprised. I figured someone would have told me right off the bat what these things are. There's no way i'm the only person who's investigated these things. thank you for your time!

[ynot]

All of the seed cones that @Tidgy's Dad has pictured show a distinct spiral pattern and uniform size in the outer surface.

They also show seed placement on the inside.

These are missing in the original items.

 

1 hour ago, john h dalton said:

a friend in a neighboring town took some and polished them

Would like to see a picture of the polished one.

[john h dalton]

27 minutes ago, ynot said:

All of the seed cones that @Tidgy's Dad has pictured show a distinct spiral pattern and uniform size in the outer surface.

They also show seed placement on the inside.

These are missing in the original items.

 

Would like to see a picture of the polished one.

lol unfortunately i don't have any here.  I thought about that after I said that. I keep meaning to polish some for my self but every time i go see my buddy in Thermop I never remember to take any with me.  I will now!!! lol

[Auspex]

2 hours ago, Fossildude19 said:

I think John may have the right of it, after all.  

 

...usually does...

This also explains their clumpy distribution, having formed where the chemistry was right.

I should have recognized these, having seen them before

[abyssunder]

I'm late to the party, but my first impression was they are marcasite nodules. JohnJ is right. This blurry picture might be the key for the iron content.

 

[GeschWhat]

4 hours ago, john h dalton said:

oh and a friend in a neighboring town took some and polished them up on his water belt polisher. ( i guess thats what you call it lol) and they polished up real pretty almost agatized

Very cool! From the outside, they almost look like horse kidney/bladder stones, but those have concentric rings on the inside. When they are polished do they have them?

[john h dalton]

34 minutes ago, GeschWhat said:

Very cool! From the outside, they almost look like horse kidney/bladder stones, but those have concentric rings on the inside. When they are polished do they have them?

yes but they look different its heard to explain i'll get one polished right soon. lol

[abyssunder]

Can you post, please, a more focused picture of the above one, to see the iron (...) layer?

[Ludwigia]

I'm also in the weathered marcasite nodule camp.

[M Harvey]

Just looking at the pictures, they remind me of Sycamore fruit.  I think you should check with a paleo-botanist.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

t

[john h dalton]

7 hours ago, abyssunder said:

Can you post, please, a more focused picture of the above one, to see the iron (...) layer?

im trying to get better pictures lol

[abyssunder]

Thank you for the pictures. It's clear they have iron content, but they might be something else. I change my ID leaning toward Dahllite. Take a look here: SPHERULITIC CONCRETIONS OF DAHLLITE FROM ISHAWOOA, WYOMING

 

" The dark material in the center of the concretions (Fig. 1) is translucent in thin sections and contains iron and a small amount of manganese, as indicated by microchemical and blowpipe tests, but it cannot be referredt o any mineral species a nd probably represents a mixture of oxides. Within this material calcite occurs, filling interstices, and in the dahllite, calcite occurs at the margins of cavities to a Iesser extent. The dark material seemst o be later than the dahllite and the calcite is probably still later. "

 

Dahllite nodules

 

 

[JohnJ]

I think @abyssunder nailed the geologic origin.

[Auspex]

Solid!

[Malone]

On 3/6/2018 at 3:17 AM, Foozil said:

They are seed pods (or cones), can't remember what they're called... I'm sure others do though. Nice specimens!

Edit: the others make some good points about concretions so I may be wrong...

They do look like seed pods. They look like a mini Osage orange

[abyssunder]

" These are sometimes called "Wyoming golf balls".  They are a rare type of concretion that formed in the Thermopolis Formation of the Cretaceous.  We happen to have a lot of them right here around Cody.  They are a little bit of a mystery, but we know that they contain a lot of different minerals.  Some of these minerals are Calcium, Iron Phosphate, Manganese, Calcite, and Pyrite.  Sometimes Dahllite is found in fossil bone."

 

excerpt from here

[john h dalton]

20 hours ago, john h dalton said:

lol unfortunately i don't have any here.  I thought about that after I said that. I keep meaning to polish some for my self but every time i go see my buddy in Thermop I never remember to take any with me.  I will now!!! lol

the inside of this one that i tried to polish was pretty soft and crumbly. not like what i remembered. the back polished ok.

[john h dalton]

2 hours ago, abyssunder said:

Thank you for the pictures. It's clear they have iron content, but they might be something else. I change my ID leaning toward Dahllite. Take a look here: SPHERULITIC CONCRETIONS OF DAHLLITE FROM ISHAWOOA, WYOMING

 

" The dark material in the center of the concretions (Fig. 1) is translucent in thin sections and contains iron and a small amount of manganese, as indicated by microchemical and blowpipe tests, but it cannot be referredt o any mineral species a nd probably represents a mixture of oxides. Within this material calcite occurs, filling interstices, and in the dahllite, calcite occurs at the margins of cavities to a Iesser extent. The dark material seemst o be later than the dahllite and the calcite is probably still later. "

 

Dahllite nodules

 

 

Well right on! that lookes like the creature right there. Thank you for your time and knowledge. Thanks to everyone that weighted in!      If there is ever a demand for these things, I know a place where a person could fill a dump truck full with them. lol thanks again!

[GeschWhat]

Learned something new yet again. I love the odd stuff. Thanks, @abyssunder!

[Malone]

This a cross sectional view of an Osage Orange 

[Malone]

Oops