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algal mat?


ober

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On 1/30/2019 at 6:51 PM, Innocentx said:

Hi. @ober. I wish I could've seen what you got to, under the microscopes. I also share an interest in microbially induced structures in the fossil record.

They certainly aren't the 'celebrities' among the fossils but their indispensable supporting role deserves appreciation.

Hello Innocentrx, Here are several pictures.  The first two images are scrapings from the sample at 400X magnification. The second of these images shows lots of small crystals with two shaded areas, one central and the other bottom center. The first picture shows detail of these areas. The shaded area to the right of the image and the two small blue shapes upper left are the most interesting. The biologist who looked at these is not a paleontologist but thought that these reflected organic material rather than silica. I have a number of other pictures but can't open them until I figure out their file format. They show the crystalline structures under different polarizing lights. I think the 400 magnification is better than the 1000 magnification. The third image is the two blue elements at 1000x magnification and the last image is the chrystalline sturctures at that higher magnification. What do I conclude from all this so far? A marine invert paleontologist thought the sample was likely an 'encrusting bryozoan.' These scrapings have clearly silica material but also possibly organic elements. I will continue to pursue this. It is taking me into a bryozoan world. Higher mag images in the next post. As always, comments and insights from all welcome. Tom 

fossil scraping 400x Dapi 1.jpg

fossil scraping 400x pol light.jpg

fossil scraping 1000x dapi.jpg

fossil scraping 1000x pol light.jpg

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  • 9 months later...
On 1/17/2019 at 3:54 PM, ober said:

... am more interested in clarifying this as bacterial or algal....

I know it's an old post... just wanted to say that "algae" is one of those words that used to drive me up the bloody wall.    It seems there are the single-celled horribly-named Blue-Green Algae, which are really prokaryotic cyanobacteria.    From what I read, the fossil algal mats are mostly from those guys. so bacterial = algal.      The other "algae" are eukaryotic and really diverse but I haven't seen them discussed in terms of fossil "algal mats".

 

Did you make progress on the encrusting bryazoan theory?

 

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10 hours ago, SteveE said:

I know it's an old post... just wanted to say that "algae" is one of those words that used to drive me up the bloody wall.    It seems there are the single-celled horribly-named Blue-Green Algae, which are really prokaryotic cyanobacteria.    From what I read, the fossil algal mats are mostly from those guys. so bacterial = algal.      The other "algae" are eukaryotic and really diverse but I haven't seen them discussed in terms of fossil "algal mats".

 

Did you make progress on the encrusting bryazoan theory?

 

Sigh, no progress, but as I look at it I continue to think it is organic rather than a mineralization.

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