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Baddadcp

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This was found in the Potomac group, probably Patuxent formation in PG county MD. Some historical finds between Bladensburg and Laurel, so that is the reference locations. Also some footprints found in Goddard Spaceflight Center recently,  Greenbelt Md.), that would be same formation. I have some ideas, but would like to firm them up. Top, Bottom and two details.Thanks in advance.

top of pie.jpg

cycad one a.jpg

cycad 2a.jpg

bottom of pie.jpg

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The middles are plant material, lignite being quite common in the formation. The bottom one could almost be construed as nodosaur print like but prints can be hard to authenticate. @EMP, do you have anything to add?

“...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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They are all the same piece. I seriously doubt it's a print, it has the aspect of a concretion. If you ever had anything to do with cows, I would swear it's a "cow pie." Quite fossilized, of course.

 

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2 hours ago, Baddadcp said:

They are all the same piece. I seriously doubt it's a print, it has the aspect of a concretion. If you ever had anything to do with cows, I would swear it's a "cow pie." Quite fossilized, of course.

 

In Carroll county, it’s kinda hard not to have anything to do with cows! Obviously no Cretaceous Cows (other than hadrosaurs), and I’ve never heard of a coprolite from the Potomac group, not really conducive to their preservation. I’m doubtful it’s a print as well, they are typically in a “glossy-er” stone, if you’ve seen the Ray Stanford finds like the NASA slab. Hard to find tracks, won’t stop me from looking! 

 

2 hours ago, ynot said:

I see a concretion that may have some shell preservation within it.

Second picture looks like it could be a nautiloid.

This is terrestrial Cretaceous Material;)

though oxbows are known, I am confident they are Plant pieces.

“...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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No shells in this formation, typically. I did see a post of a gastropod here a few days ago, but not in this piece. I am thinking cycad, but don't want to plant (so to speak) any ideas. 

 

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6 hours ago, Baddadcp said:

No shells in this formation, typically. I did see a post of a gastropod here a few days ago, but not in this piece. I am thinking cycad, but don't want to plant (so to speak) any ideas. 

 

Cycad was the only thing that came to my mind beyond plant. I don't claim to have had much experience with them though.

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I also made a mistake posting. I thought I had the pic with the measurement , but didn't. Hope this helps.

measure the cycad.jpg

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No, no big iron rich formations, the exposures are typically clay and lignite rich mudstone. The siderite pieces are scattered through the creek beds all over northern PG county. There is a "Dinosaur Park" in Laurel Md. that is iron deposits and restricted for digging. Much of the area is actually Potomac Formation, not Patuxent Formation. 

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Just thinking out loud, this kind of reminds me of the iron outcrops in the Hell Creek Formation that contain plant material, but those outcrops are very large. When you mentioned cow pies it got me wondering if herbivore coprolites could fossilize that way.

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2 hours ago, GeschWhat said:

Just thinking out loud, this kind of reminds me of the iron outcrops in the Hell Creek Formation that contain plant material, but those outcrops are very large. When you mentioned cow pies it got me wondering if herbivore coprolites could fossilize that way.

Kinda why I posed the question the way I did. There are coprolites in Patuxent Formation and quite a variety of dinosaurs from bones and trace. We may never know.

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On 7/24/2018 at 9:59 AM, GeschWhat said:

Are there a lot of outcrops of this iron-rich material in the area? If so, how large are they?

Actually there are. Dinosaur park in laurel is also potomac group, and is a huge outcrop of ironstone. It was used as ore a few hundred years ago.

 

7 minutes ago, Baddadcp said:

There are coprolites in Patuxent Formation

I must’ve missed this, so you have a source I can look at? Not doubting, simply curious.

“...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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21 minutes ago, Baddadcp said:

Kinda why I posed the question the way I did. There are coprolites in Patuxent Formation and quite a variety of dinosaurs from bones and trace. We may never know.

Because herbivore coprolites are so rare there aren't many confirmed examples. I'm glad you are on the look out. :D Would you mind if I ran photos of your sample by Karen Chin (dino dung expert) to get her thoughts on this? If you have an examples of coprolites from the Patuxent Formation, I would love to see them as well. I'm always interested in seeing coprolites from unfamiliar formations.

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7 minutes ago, GeschWhat said:

Because herbivore coprolites are so rare there aren't many confirmed examples. I'm glad you are on the look out. :D Would you mind if I ran photos of your sample by Karen Chin (dino dung expert) to get her thoughts on this? If you have an examples of coprolites from the Patuxent Formation, I would love to see them as well. I'm always interested in seeing coprolites from unfamiliar formations.

That would be fine. Did you want more or better, or is what you have good enough? I have some iron nodules that I would like to be, but alas, I think they are iron nodules. As you say, coprolites are very recognizable when they look like a carnivore skat, vegetarians, not so much. But there have been some called in this formation. I have searched, but haven't seen. Thus the post HERE.

 

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41 minutes ago, WhodamanHD said:

Actually there are. Dinosaur park in laurel is also potomac group, and is a huge outcrop of ironstone. It was used as ore a few hundred years ago.

 

I must’ve missed this, so you have a source I can look at? Not doubting, simply curious.

Rumor and innuendo, at this point. It is part of the information I am trying to draw out. There have been articles in the local papers, historically, that have said that, but I haven't seen them myself. 

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@WhodamanHD I almost didn't see this post! I was coming on to talk about the Shark Week stuff about Megalodon, but I saw this in my bell tab. 

 

I've collected a fair bit in the Potomac Group (the Potomac Group includes three formations in Maryland, the Patuxent Formation which is the oldest of the three, the Arundel Clay, famous for it's dinosaur bones and teeth, and the Patapsco Formation, famous for it's leaves and also the youngest of the three), specifically the Patuxent Formation and the Arundel Clay. I feel 99.999999% confidant in saying that this piece is from the Patuxent Formation. Generally speaking, the Patuxent is usually made up of coarser grained clastics than the Arundel Clay, and commonly has iron rich sandstone blocks like this in it. The Patuxent, like the rest of the Potomac Group, is mostly made up of unconsolidated (a fancy word for not solid rock) sediment, however individual pieces of sandstone, conglomerate and ironstone can be regionally common. 

 

These are most likely fossils of woody plants, or gymnosperms as the MGS labels them. In the DC area the only genera of wood I've seen listed by the MGS is Sequoia sp. and a cypress, however other genera are reported from Virginia. I've never been able to identify any of my pieces (I have a thread titled "Maryland's Mesozoic Park" with some pictures of some of my finds) beyond gymnosperm/woody plant elements, and judging by the fragmentary nature of these finds I doubt you'll be able to do much better. What may be causing the nautiloid like appearance is the weathering of the fossil may have removed the outer layers to expose the interior.. 

 

I also doubt that is footprint. I've found similar stuff in my time collecting the Potomac Group rocks (including one that is a spitting image of your find) and I've come to believe most are broken concretions, but I still like to keep a couple of suspicious ones around just in case they ever do turn out to be anything (I've seen photos of some of what Mr. Stanford and the Smithsonian have found, and if those are footprints then I have probably found a bunch more and didn't realize it - as a matter of fact, there was one specimen I had found that matched the description of one of the footprints Mr. Stanford had found, but I left it behind thinking nothing of it. I mulled it over, kicking myself that I didn't at least get a photo of it, only to go back to the site a week later and find that it was no longer there!).

 

I think I can see some plant pieces in the other specimen you posted, but it's hard to make out any details. I haven't heard of any dinosaur coprolites from the Potomac Group, only crocodile ones. 

 

Actually the Potomac Group was famous as a source of iron, even supplying iron for use in the manufacture of weapons during the War of 1812. The iron ore pits were dug into the Arundel Clay by slaves mining the limonite, and along the way they also found extensive amounts of lignite (used as a fuel source IIRC) and, of course, dinosaur fossils. Most of the pits were in the Arundel Clay and the Patuxent Formation, with a lot of pits being in the vicinity of Muirkirk and around Baltimore. 

 

PS - I believe that gastropod photo you saw may have been my specimen! As far as I know it's the first from the Patuxent, unless it was weathered down from Arundel rocks. It is a freshwater species, no marine layers are known from the Potomac Group. 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, EMP said:

@WhodamanHD I almost didn't see this post! I was coming on to talk about the Shark Week stuff about Megalodon, but I saw this in my bell tab. 

 

I've collected a fair bit in the Potomac Group (the Potomac Group includes three formations in Maryland, the Patuxent Formation which is the oldest of the three, the Arundel Clay, famous for it's dinosaur bones and teeth, and the Patapsco Formation, famous for it's leaves and also the youngest of the three), specifically the Patuxent Formation and the Arundel Clay. I feel 99.999999% confidant in saying that this piece is from the Patuxent Formation. Generally speaking, the Patuxent is usually made up of coarser grained clastics than the Arundel Clay, and commonly has iron rich sandstone blocks like this in it. The Patuxent, like the rest of the Potomac Group, is mostly made up of unconsolidated (a fancy word for not solid rock) sediment, however individual pieces of sandstone, conglomerate and ironstone can be regionally common. 

 

These are most likely fossils of woody plants, or gymnosperms as the MGS labels them. In the DC area the only genera of wood I've seen listed by the MGS is Sequoia sp. and a cypress, however other genera are reported from Virginia. I've never been able to identify any of my pieces (I have a thread titled "Maryland's Mesozoic Park" with some pictures of some of my finds) beyond gymnosperm/woody plant elements, and judging by the fragmentary nature of these finds I doubt you'll be able to do much better. What may be causing the nautiloid like appearance is the weathering of the fossil may have removed the outer layers to expose the interior.. 

 

I also doubt that is footprint. I've found similar stuff in my time collecting the Potomac Group rocks (including one that is a spitting image of your find) and I've come to believe most are broken concretions, but I still like to keep a couple of suspicious ones around just in case they ever do turn out to be anything (I've seen photos of some of what Mr. Stanford and the Smithsonian have found, and if those are footprints then I have probably found a bunch more and didn't realize it - as a matter of fact, there was one specimen I had found that matched the description of one of the footprints Mr. Stanford had found, but I left it behind thinking nothing of it. I mulled it over, kicking myself that I didn't at least get a photo of it, only to go back to the site a week later and find that it was no longer there!).

 

I think I can see some plant pieces in the other specimen you posted, but it's hard to make out any details. I haven't heard of any dinosaur coprolites from the Potomac Group, only crocodile ones. 

 

Actually the Potomac Group was famous as a source of iron, even supplying iron for use in the manufacture of weapons during the War of 1812. The iron ore pits were dug into the Arundel Clay by slaves mining the limonite, and along the way they also found extensive amounts of lignite (used as a fuel source IIRC) and, of course, dinosaur fossils. Most of the pits were in the Arundel Clay and the Patuxent Formation, with a lot of pits being in the vicinity of Muirkirk and around Baltimore. 

 

PS - I believe that gastropod photo you saw may have been my specimen! As far as I know it's the first from the Patuxent, unless it was weathered down from Arundel rocks. It is a freshwater species, no marine layers are known from the Potomac Group. 

 

 

Yes, I had seen the post on Maryland fossils that mirror what I have been finding for the last fifty years in the area. Between Greenbelt Park and Beltsville. The "sequoia" and "gymnosperm" being the most common. Siderite, (hematite?) dark, very hard wood/bone like fossils and silicified lighter colored wood that you say is Sequoia? recently found some pieces that were lignite in the process of turning. Never seen that before. Have horsetail in mudstone impressions and a variety of other stuff. What is appropriate to post and on which threads? I am new at this.

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12 hours ago, Baddadcp said:

Yes, I had seen the post on Maryland fossils that mirror what I have been finding for the last fifty years in the area. Between Greenbelt Park and Beltsville. The "sequoia" and "gymnosperm" being the most common. Siderite, (hematite?) dark, very hard wood/bone like fossils and silicified lighter colored wood that you say is Sequoia? recently found some pieces that were lignite in the process of turning. Never seen that before. Have horsetail in mudstone impressions and a variety of other stuff. What is appropriate to post and on which threads? I am new at this.

ALL fossils are appropriate to post. :) If you are looking to have something identified, you could "Start a new topic" under the Fossil ID section. If you know what you have and can properly identify it genus, species, etc., you can post it under Collections. You can also start a Members Gallery to showcase your finds. If you put something in the wrong place, no worries, our wonderful administrators will move it to the appropriate location and let you know. 

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