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Fossil Hunting Trip Morehead Sinuous shaped Fossil


crazy4horses

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This fossil came from buena vista sandstone layer of the rock formation and it pink in color because of the iron oxide.  When I first saw it from a distance I thought it was a snake laying on top of the rock sunning probably because when you are hunting around rocks in Eastern Kentucky you are always thinking about copperheads.  Normally in this layer you find crinoid stems so this is a first for me to find something like this.

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This is some sort of meandering trace fossil or ichnofossil.

I've seen several like this over the years here. 

Regards,

    Tim    VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER

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Nice Garmin. I have the same one and its amazing for making new sites.

...I'm back.

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very cool, from the curled tapered end it  doesn't look like some kind of track...very cool piece. It looks like it was in a very large stone...were you able or did you try to unearth it...if not, can you make a cast in situ of it? 

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Cool-looking trace fossil!

“...whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.” ~ Charles Darwin

Happy hunting,

Mason

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It was on a huge slab of rock that had fallen from the rock wall. Would need a front in loader to move.  Did not make a cast of it.

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When I looked at the first photo, I thought it was a concavity in this rock. The second photo reveals it's raised from the surface. Could you tell which side was originally facing upwards, before slab fell out?

It's very cool looking.

"Journey through a universe ablaze with changes" Phil Ochs

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I think the fact that this fossil is raised up from the top surface of slab, adds a new dimension of possibilities. What do others think?

"Journey through a universe ablaze with changes" Phil Ochs

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Did find some other sinuous shaped fossils nearby but there are not even close to the size of this one. They were more the width of a tip of a magic marker or night crawlers

 

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This last photo looks much more like trace fossils.

"Journey through a universe ablaze with changes" Phil Ochs

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Yes but are the two fossils the same and one is just super-sized.  They are from two different rock layers at the same location.

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On 15/06/2018 at 4:23 AM, crazy4horses said:

The side that is facing upward was originally facing upwards.

 

Are you absolutely sure about that? Because from a palaeontological point of view, it makes no sense; it can only really be a trace fossil, and that would have to be an infill of a groove in the sea floor, rather than a ridge sticking up... If this really is the 'right' way up, then I'm completely befuddled! :blink:

 

Assuming it's the other way up, though, it could well be an Undichnia - the trace made the tail of a fish swimming along the bottom. Notice how the impression 'leans outwards' on the outside of the bends, and imagine the tail carving through the mud. These sometimes also shows the traces of the pectoral fins; see, e.g., http://www2.muse.it/pubblicazioni/6/actaG83/18Todesco-Avanzini.pdf

 

The other ones are also trace fossils, but in this case quite different: they're infaunal burrows where mud seems to have been carried down into sandstone, whereas the first is an impression on the sediment surface before the next bed was laid down. Obviously there's a nice selection from this site!

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No I am not absolutely sure which way was up. I based it on the the position iron oxide layers in the wall picture attached.  Also previous fossil finds in iron oxide layers that the fossils tend to be on topside. 

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11 hours ago, Spongy Joe said:

it can only really be a trace fossil, and that would have to be an infill of a groove in the sea floor, rather than a ridge sticking up...

Since @crazy4horses isn't sure which way was up, I will agree with the above. And maybe fish tail is right.

It's very snake-like and an interesting thing to come upon.

"Journey through a universe ablaze with changes" Phil Ochs

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They are trace fossils.

This will help in the ID. :)

 

" Seven trace fossil genera and four body fossil genera have been found in the sandstone facies (Buena Vista Member) of the Cuyahoga Formation (Lower Mississippian) at Pine Quarry Park in Reynoldsburg, Ohio. Ichnogenera identified are Scalarituba, Gordia, Zoophycos, Helminthoidia, Phycosiphon, Planolites, and Laevicyclus. Zoophycos and Laevicyclus are found in the lower beds; Gordia and Helminthoidia are more common in the upper beds. Scalarituba and Planolites are found throughout the beds. Together, the trace fossils of the upper part of the quarry are indicative of the Cruziana ichnofacies. Lower in the section the facies seems to be of the Skolithos ichnofacies. Associated body fossils found are Platycrinities sp., Gilbertsocrinus? sp., Dictyoclostus sp., Fenestrellina sp., and unidentifiable blastoid fragments. At the Reynoldsburg locality, deposition is interpreted to have taken place in a shallow water setting near an ancient deltaic environment. "

 

" Buena Vista Member extends from southeastern Ohio to northern Kentucky, where it is contained in the Borden Formation (Coogan et. al., 1981).
The environmental setting of the Buena Vista is interpreted to be a nearshore setting that grades eastward into a barrier bar-deltaic environment (Bork, 1979). This is supported by the fine-grained sandstone/siltstone interbedded with gray shale. These lithologies grade upward into coarser sandstone deposits (Bork, 1979). The trace fossils found in the quarry represent the Cruziana in this locality since the traces Gordia, Scalartuba, and Planolites were found in Pine Quarry Park along with Zoophycos traces.
These traces, other than Zoophycos normally represent areas that are shallow shelves, not below wave base (Rhoads, 1975). Zoophycos cannot always be used as a depth indicator for rocks (Miller, 1991). The body fossils of crinoids, brachiopods, and bryozoans suggest that this environment was a shallow marine setting. "

 

excerpts from A. O. Willis. 1996. Trace and Body Fossils from the Cuyahoga Formation (Mississippian), Reynoldsburg, Ohio. Thesis.

 

 

 

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