A lot going on with this fossil.

[Shimmeron]

The first two pics are of a fossil I found w/ a front and back view. I found them in a fossil bed in the Oquirrh Mts. (Ut) There's a lot of trace fossils on this one, so it may be impossible to id them all. Any thoughts would be much appreciated. The 3rd & 4th pictures are of a similar fossil found in the same fossil bed w/ a front and a back view as well.

[Shimmeron]

Back side of the same fossil shown above.

[Shimmeron]

2nd fossil from the same area.

[Kane]

So far, looks like coral...

 

Back side looks like marine sediment with brachiopod bits in cross section.

[Shimmeron]

Back side of the 2nd fossil.

[ynot]

Looks like typical limestone weathering of a hash plate.

Often the fossils are slightly harder or more resistant to weathering and will stick out from the surface of the rock.

I see lots of little bits and pieces of invertebrates.

[KimTexan]

I see lots of marine invertebrate stuff too. It looks a little like Pennsylvanian. Do you know the geologic period it was found in?

 

Those little round things look cool. Can we have a close up pic of those? They may be bryozoa of some kind.

[KimTexan]

Welcome to the Fossil Forum from Texas.

 

Cool fossils.

I’d like to see close ups of these structures.

 

May we have close ups of the circled areas

The green circled area looks very intriguing.  I’m wondering if it’s a brachiopod or a cephalopod. I can’t tell from the pic what it is.

The blue circle is a brachiopod shell.

I’m not sure what the yellow part is. Looks interesting.

The long stringy things may be a form of Bryozoa. Close up pics needed to tell more.

 

If you have trouble uploading you can email the pics to yourself and select a size less than 3.9 mb and then save and post those.

[Kane]

13 hours ago, KimTexan said:

I see lots of marine invertebrate stuff too. It looks a little like Pennsylvanian. Do you know the geologic period it was found in?

 

Those little round things look cool. Can we have a close up pic of those? They may be bryozoa of some kind.

Not bryozoa. There are visible septae, which might be more suggestive of coral. Are we looking at the same piece? If it were bryozoan, I'd expect to see pores/zooecia. 

[GeschWhat]

The little rice-shaped objects on the first fossil are interesting. They almost look like coprolites, but my spidey senses are telling me they are not. 

[Shimmeron]

I appreciate all the posts. I will take some more close up pictures of the desired areas and upload them here in a little bit. I found these fossils in a fossil bed with lots of corn coral (or something similar to it.) I placed a picture of one of the coral rocks I found below.

[TqB]

The long, thin spikes might be brachiopod spines.

[Shimmeron]

I appreciate all the posts. I will take some more close up pictures of the desired areas and upload them here in a little bit. I found these fossils in a fossil bed with lots of corn coral (or something similar to it.) I placed a picture of one of the coral rocks I found above this post, with the back side posted below.

 

Kim, I was told by the Utah Geological Society that my fossils are between the Pennsylvanian to Mississippian geological time period. They wanted me to bring some by so they could have a look. I have a lot of different kinds that I found that I'd like to post later, as the biodiversity is quite high.

[DeepTimeIsotopes]

Hello from Utah. These are from the Mississippian if I remember correctly. The Great Blue Limestone is the largest unit in the mountains and is chock full of fossils. I have collected from these mountains more times than I can count. The horn corals are formally called Rugosa. There's also bryzoan colonies that grow in small strands. Of course there's fenestrate bryozoans and a ton of brachipods and bivalves. Crinoids are quite common. I have found worm burrows as well. Where are you collecting from so that we can find the location on a geologic map?

[Shimmeron]

Middle Canyon. I'm finding them in different remote areas of the canyon. You'll find some in a 20 foot swath and then nothing at all for more miles up the canyon, and then you'll find more in another isolated small area. Its hit and miss. 

[Shimmeron]

A few close up pictures of the fossil I posted earlier. My camera isn't the greatest.

[KimTexan]

2 hours ago, Shimmeron said:

Kim, I was told by the Utah Geological Society that my fossils are between the Pennsylvanian to Mississippian geological time period. They wanted me to bring some by so they could have a look. I have a lot of different kinds that I found that I'd like to post later, as the biodiversity is quite high.

 

Yes, I thought they were likely from Carboniferous formations. I don’t know how much geology you know, but the Mississippian and Pennsylvanian periods comprise the Carboniferous era. Carbon and coal are abundant in these periods. 

 

I agree that the larger round shapes are coral. I saw some perforate ones where the septa have spaces between the trabeculae, which initially appeared like they could be autopore or zooecium of Bryozoa.

Those long slender things, some look like tape laying over things. Those are likely Bryozoa.

[KimTexan]

The one I originally circled in green looks like it may be another type of coral.

I can’t tell what the little circle on the left of your 1st pic of this set is. It could be part of a crinoid or even a type of cephalopod or gastropod. Still need a closer shot of that by itself.

The part I said looked almost like tape is in the center of the 1st pic of this set. It looks more like a shell.

 

I am not that experienced with Carboniferous fossils. Where I live I’m surrounded by Cretaceous fossils. I have to drive about 2 hours to get to Carboniferous, Pennsylvanian.

I am accustomed to seeing lots of crinoid stem pieces in the Carboniferous stuff, which I have been exposed to. Crinoid stem pieces seem strangely absent from these rocks.

Maybe corals and crinoids didn’t play well together. Or maybe your crinoids are still in tact and we just can’t see them for all the matrix. That’s mere speculation. It may just be that crinoids didn’t live in this particular  prehistoric neighborhood or this block of the neighborhood.

Still I’d like to see more close up pics. Or better yet pics with some matrix cleared off here and there. Lots of cool stuff in there though.

I don’t know if this will be helpful, but these are from a page of an old book I have.

The names of the corals may no longer be valid. Things get reclassified and renamed all the time.

Representative corals of the Mississippian.

 

Representative corals of the Pennsylvanian.

 

These are pics describing the anatomy of mostly horn or Rugose corals along with the terms and explaination of terms.

 

These terms go with the next figure. If you want to have the terms glossary for the previous figure and I can send it.

[Shimmeron]

Very informative, thank you Kim! I will scan through these tonight.