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Pioche Shale Algae


connorp

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I was just going through a handful of Pioche Shale (Early-Middle Cambrian, Nebraska Nevada) trilo plates I bought a while ago, and found this interesting piece. I'm leaning more towards algae than worms, as they are reminiscent of the carbon film preservation of algae from Cambrian formations in China.

 

IMG_5167.thumb.jpg.aaabd7f863766968a144cb96da21d2a4.jpg

IMG_5168.thumb.jpg.99c3f51ca2baff037dcc1fed2bce002c.jpgIMG_5169.thumb.jpg.a008fe26e9d8e766bf92efb6016cc0f6.jpg

 

Any thoughts?

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10 minutes ago, connorp said:

Nebraska

Did you mean Nevada?

Each dot is 50,000,000 years:

Hadean............Archean..............................Proterozoic.......................................Phanerozoic...........

                                                                                                                    Paleo......Meso....Ceno..

                                                                                                           Ꞓ.OSD.C.P.Tr.J.K..Pg.NgQ< You are here

Doesn't time just fly by?

 

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I'd like to see more pics under different lighting conditions but it does have an algal look to it, especially given the carbonaceous nature.

I wonder how much of that stuff occurs in the Pioche but people pass it over on the hunt for trilobites and other "more interesting" things?

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5c424fb2bc785_ScreenShot2019-01-18at5_12_47PM.thumb.png.b56e3d4c15b575a779f1995a65606772.png5c424fb42f07c_ScreenShot2019-01-18at5_12_56PM.png.80e9603641680e741ead16b5118c44c4.png

5c424fb864930_ScreenShot2019-01-18at5_13_05PM.png.8bae7c95421a68b3f404cd5f19ac526e.png5c424fbae963e_ScreenShot2019-01-18at5_13_18PM.png.5ae05695c35070d0f2c0f4c5a9a94342.png

 

I tried getting some closer shots. I was hoping to some ovular holes that would be indicative of Margaretia dorus, but I see no detailed structure. Perhaps not as obvious through these pictures, but I did examine these through a magnified headband and could not make out anything. Perhaps they're just too weathered.

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They look similar to @davehunt‘s worms from the Spence Shale here

I’d say the lighter band around the organism is indicative of some kind of organic matter so it’s gotta be something. 

I turned your picture monochrome and inverted it to see if we can see anything this way like spines on polychaete worms but I can’t see anything else.558F4D48-FAD1-431F-866D-740699978544.thumb.jpeg.26562f6235246f5fe71e619d8a742789.jpeg

 

Each dot is 50,000,000 years:

Hadean............Archean..............................Proterozoic.......................................Phanerozoic...........

                                                                                                                    Paleo......Meso....Ceno..

                                                                                                           Ꞓ.OSD.C.P.Tr.J.K..Pg.NgQ< You are here

Doesn't time just fly by?

 

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I found these while splitting some Penn Dixie shale today that I got from @Fossil-Hound. The stains around them are what I would guess to be some sort of halo (iron oxide?) due to decay gases. The iron oxide is easy to spot on chunks of shale, and it splits quite easily along the algae, giving you nice pos/negs as below.

 

IMG_5245.thumb.jpg.6ba8ce2b7e62992d3d2d6a4ef6a6ba58.jpg

 

These are very similar morphologically to the Pioche Shale specimens. I have just read the paper "Seaweed morphology and ecology during the great animal diversification events of the early Paleozoic: A tale of two floras" (LoDuca et al 2017), and the conclusion the authors draw in regards to these ribbonlike specimens is that "It is possible that all of this material represents fragments of originally larger thalli with more complex morphologies."

 

Not the sexiest fossils, but I certainly find them fascinating.

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  • 4 months later...
On 1/18/2019 at 2:45 AM, Wrangellian said:

I'd like to see more pics under different lighting conditions but it does have an algal look to it, especially given the carbonaceous nature.

I wonder how much of that stuff occurs in the Pioche but people pass it over on the hunt for trilobites and other "more interesting" things?

I just thought of your post today. I was going through my Pioche specimens for only like the thousandth time, and again found something I never noticed before – a couple small brachiopods. Even cooler than the trilos IMO.

 

IMG_6211.thumb.jpg.45930a1de61660dce8cba75f84533d43.jpg

 

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Anything from that low in the column is nice, but yes, not too many brachs there, are there?

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Amazing to sit and consider just how old that fossil is.

'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'

George Santayana

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