Sometimes You Have To Whack It !!

[Nimravis]

No time to break concretions opened today, and we received our first inch of snow. Tonight I decided to go through some concretions to open tomorrow and decided to tap a couple of them while I was holding them in my hand. Here are two that did open up-

 

Coprolite- This piece came out of a bucket from Pit 4 and I believe that it might be one of the largest pieces that I found that came from that location. The top portion of the concretion is very thin and in pieces, so I will try to reassemble that piece.

 

 

 

Here was a nice concretion that I was going to freeze and thaw, but I decided to tap it and the top portion popped off into my hand. I was able to open it and will leave it as is so the concretion does not get damaged.

 

Pecopteris Fern-

 

 

It is always a shame when a great looking concretion breaks perfectly and when you open it, there is no fossil.

 

 

I found this piece of Calamites bark with internodes in the bucket, but I had opened it years ago.

 

 

This large concretion was also in the bucket and I was going to try and freeze it until i turned it over and saw the fracture going down the middle of the concretion, which never really holds promise. I will opened this one up tomorrow with the hammer and hopefully I am wrong. If it did not have that fracture, I would take a guess that it would contain multiple Annularia leaf whorls.

 

 

I decided to post a picture of a very small portion of concretions that I have put off to the side. All concretions that I will freeze are complete and have excellent shapes- The scale cube is 1".

 

 

 

[stats]

1 hour ago, Nimravis said:

 

I decided to post a picture of a very small portion of concretions that I have put off to the side. All concretions that I will freeze are complete and have excellent shapes- The scale cube is 1".

 

 

 

Nice group to freeze/thaw!  I hope you get some nice stuff!

 

Those ones with a crack are usually invaded.  I agree about the perfectly shaped duds... very disappointing!

 

Cheers,

Rich

 

[Nimravis]

3 minutes ago, stats said:

Nice group to freeze/thaw!  I hope you get some nice stuff!

 

Those ones with a crack are usually invaded.  I agree about the perfectly shaped duds... very disappointing!

 

Cheers,

Rich

 

Thanks Rich, right now I am guessing I have a little over 1000 of these nice shaped concretions that I have put aside to freeze. Hopefully some will open and reveal something nice, trapped in time. As I continue to go through buckets, I will put more of them off to the side to freeze.

[Nimravis]

Today I spent about 4 hours outside in 30 degree temperature cracking open various sized concretions from Pit 4 (Shadow Lakes). Some of these concretions had very nice shapes and yielded nothing, unfortunately some of these concretions were larger and I always held promise that there would be something, but that was not to be the case this time.

 

Here are a couple examples:

 

This first one I knew was going to be a problem because of fracture that was running through it.

 

 

This one also had a great shape, but again nothing inside.

 

 

A few more-

 

 

This piece had a portion of Calamites bark, so I trimmed it down and placed into a bucket for the ESCONI trip in May.

 

 

This next piece I really had to hold back from whacking it with the hammer and revealing a beautiful fern that has been trapped in this stone coffin for 300 Million Tears.. I am really hoping that this one has a nice fern inside of it, it has a great shape, although maybe a tad thick, but there are no fractures, so my fingers are crossed.

 

 

 

There are times when you can Whack it too hard, and though I really hate when I do it, I have to pick and choose which concretions I want to put off to the side to Freeze / Thaw. If I don't, then I would still have 100+ 5-gallon buckets left, I am shrinking that number and I believe I might have about 48 buckets left.

 

Here are a couple examples from today where I whacked them a little too hard. But to be honest with this statement, some of these concretions break into two pieces and then you have to split them, many times this becomes difficult with certain concretions. There really is nothing easy about Mazon Creek concretions, they are heavy; you never know if anything is inside; you can freeze / thaw them forever and nothing pops open; you can whack them with a hammer and nothing pops open and if it does, there may be nothing inside or you damage it.  

 

 

This would have been a very pretty piece if it was complete.

 

 

 

Here is a pick of some of the other shapes that I was opening today.

 

 

 

Here are a few of the other ferns that I opened today.

 

[Nimravis]

Here is a pretty Alethopteris-

 

 

Here are a couple pieces of bark.

 

 

A small piece of coprolite.

 

 

This piece I am not sure of, I really think that it is a piece of bark, just cant recall coming across a piece like this before.

 

[Bobby Rico]

Some gorgeous plant material today. 

[Nimravis]

18 minutes ago, Bobby Rico said:

Some gorgeous plant material today. 

Thanks Bobby.

[ynot]

Some nice pieces today Ralph.

[Nimravis]

8 minutes ago, ynot said:

Some nice pieces today Ralph.

Thanks Tony.

[Nimravis]

Today I spent another 3 hours outside cracking open concretions, this time I was going through concretions that I collected "Across From Pit 4". It really amazes me at the type of fossils that I collected at this location that is literally across the street from Pit 4 (Shadow Lakes). Some of the fossils that I find at Shadow Lakes are similar, but it is usually always flora with the occasional fauna, but I have never found a fish scale at that location, but across the street I find them, like I did today.

 

Here are my favorite four finds from the day and I will start out with my favorite. I happened to hit this concretion in the the best place, damaging the fossil, but I am still very happy with it and love the contrast. I rarely ever find Sphenophyllum, and I really believe that this is the rarer Sphenophyllum majus , identified by the 2 veins entering the leaf base (See close up).

 

 

 

My next favorite fossil find today is another fish scale - Ctenodus cristatus. At least with this concretion I did not hit it too hard, this one had fractures through out the back and the fossil was found in the center, with non-fossil bearing matrix around it. When I first hit it, one of the fractured pieces came off and I noticed a familiar sight on a small portion of it, a loupe confirmed it was a scale and I had to take some time trying to  expose and reassemble the fossil- I am happy with the results and will not touch it anymore.

 

 

Here is my third favorite find of the day, I love Annularia, and i believe this is Annularia radiata.

 

 

Here is my fourth favorite find and to be honest, I am not positive what it is, but I do believe that it may be another fish scale. This is on of the very hard concretions that shatter and a small piece broke off and I decided to stop. The fossil is not in the center of the concretion and it is on the outer edge, I believe another strike with destroy it, so I will leave this one alone.

 

 

Today was a day for concretions with subsurface bark, here are some examples.

 

 

Here are some Myalinella meeki Bivalves.

 

 

 

 

[Nimravis]

Here is another nice piece of bark.

 

 

Here are the only other pieces of flora that I found today-  Pecopteris and Neuropteris.

 

 

And lastly, a couple pieces of Coprolite.

 

[jdp]

1 hour ago, Nimravis said:

Here is my fourth favorite find and to be honest, I am not positive what it is, but I do believe that it may be another fish scale. This is on of the very hard concretions that shatter and a small piece broke off and I decided to stop. The fossil is not in the center of the concretion and it is on the outer edge, I believe another strike with destroy it, so I will leave this one alone.

 

 

 

 

Yeah, that's consistent with lungfish scale. Guessing Sagenodus, but could be a range of taxa. Nice find (and the other one too)

[Nimravis]

12 minutes ago, jdp said:

Yeah, that's consistent with lungfish scale. Guessing Sagenodus, but could be a range of taxa. Nice find (and the other one too)

According to Jack Wittry's book "The Mazon Creek Fossil Fauna" (2012), Studies have shown that Sagenodus was not part of the fish in the Mazon Creek biota, and all larger scales like this, are assigned to Ctenodus cristatus.

[jdp]

I'm not sure I agree with that. There's at least some reason to believe that Palaeophichthys is actually a juvenile Sagenodus, but more generally I am not sure I believe that all these scales are Ctenodus. Some are probably also Conchopoma and Megapleuron, at the very least, but my guess is that the Mazon lungfish fauna was more in line with what is seen at Linton and similar localities, and at least one sagenodontid was present.

[Tidgy's Dad]

Nice finds, Ralph. 

[Nimravis]

36 minutes ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

Nice finds, Ralph. 

Thanks Adam.

[Nimravis]

This evening , I had about 20 minutes to open a few concretions, with the "Feels Like Temp" at 17 degrees, it gets a little chilly. Here are some of the finds from today-

 

Bark / Subsurface Bark-

 

 

I believe that this next little piece is of the Root- Stigmaria ficoides.

 

 

Myalinella meeki-

 

 

Coprolite-

 

 

 

I am not sure on this piece leaf, but think that it may be a lateral pinnule of a Macroneuropteris.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nimravis]

I took a day off today and spent 4 hours cracking out concretions. As I stated in an earlier post how the "Area Across From Pit 4" produces different fauna than does Pit 4 (Shadow Lakes) which is across the street. Here is another example and it is the first time that I have found this Pecten at this location and all of my others were found at Pit 11, well inside the Essex Biota.

 

Looking at this one, I say that it is Aviculopecten mazonensis. Although this is a common pecten, it still was a favorite find of mine for the day since I have never found one at this location.

 

Here are a couple more nice finds-

 

This Macroneuropteris opened with one strike.

 

 

Here is a pretty Cyclopteris-

 

 

Gotta love Annularia, I with this first one opened perfectly.

 

 

 

Here is another one-

 

 

I also found a bunch of bark, here are two of my favorites.

 

 

Here are some more of my finds.

 

Myalinella meeki-

 

 

 

Here are some other pieces of bark and subsurface bark.

 

 

I think this next piece might have a tiny seed, but I am not positive and have never seen one like this.

 

 

And lastly, a couple pieces of ferns-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ynot]

1 hour ago, Nimravis said:

Gotta love Annularia, I with this first one

Looks like an ancient Japanese painting.

Lovely!

[Nimravis]

11 minutes ago, ynot said:

Looks like an ancient Japanese painting.

Lovely!

Funny you say that Tony, I was thinking that it looked like a painting also.

[Tidgy's Dad]

I really like the Aviculopecten. 

Think I have this genus from other strata. 

Some other really nice finds. 

Museum soon. 

[Nimravis]

1 hour ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

I really like the Aviculopecten. 

Think I have this genus from other strata. 

Some other really nice finds. 

Museum soon. 

Thanks Adam, I really liked the colors of the  Annularia.

[Innocentx]

More beautiful views of the past! Your posts are entertaining as well as educational. I am wondering if you could tell me, what is this material that looks like screen fabric? I see it in a number of your pieces. Thanks, Patty

 

[Nimravis]

14 minutes ago, Innocentx said:

More beautiful views of the past! Your posts are entertaining as well as educational. I am wondering if you could tell me, what is this material that looks like screen fabric? I see it in a number of your pieces. Thanks, Patty

 

Patty, 

 

I just started saving a few pieces with that pattern. From what I have found out, it is the subsurface bark from the nonvascular plant Taeniophyllum latifolium.- Some pieces are very pretty.

[Innocentx]

Ah ha. Thanks, Ralph.