Diving Into Georgia's Silurian Seas

[MeargleSchmeargl]

Much of this past week has felt less like a winter break and more like a switch from school work to government work. It seemed like many a day this week slowly chugged along, clogged by bureaucratic paperwork, followed by some bureaucratic paperwork, topped off with...more bureaucratic paperwork.

 

As I'm sure many of you can understand, this left me a little restless. Having only the internet to provide you much of any entertainment will only last you so long. Thus, I decided today would need some much-needed paleo zest. 

 

A couple of days back I was scanning through Fossil hunting videos on YouTube, looking for new things to do (or watching the Ditch Weasel's Megalodon tooth hunting videos for the billionth time). Then I came across a video I hadn't watched in a long time, about a mysterious GA site I had never been to before. With a quick look in the description and comment section, I learned that it was near Dalton. 

 

With this in mind, I Googled "Dalton Fossils". To my surprise, the first result was a trip report @Nimravis wrote a little more than a year ago:

 

With GPS coordinates now saved to Google Maps, My step grandpa and I headed out, partly guided by my phone's robotic voice.

 

We arrived at the site, greeted by a thick fog:

 

 

 

I put on waterproof boots, grabbed my hammer and chisel, and crossed the street to begin my search for Silurian treasures from the Red Mountain Formation.

 

When we crossed the street, going around the leftmost portion of the wall (parking lot perspective), We heard a rustling off to the right. A decent sized Boulder slid down from the top of the hill, taking a decent chunk of dirt with it. In the end, it was a relatively small event, but we kept an eye out in case of other potential instabilities in the rock face.

 

At entrance, facing the direction the mine lankslide occured

 

Full attention on finding fossils, it didn't take very long at all to find some brachiopod plates.

 

 

 

[Gizmo]

Great pics, thanks for posting! 

[MeargleSchmeargl]

Before much longer, we had a pretty good sample size from the site.

 

 

 

Upon returning to the car, I looked at the phone and realized that the Chatsworth site I'm so fond of was a mere 11 miles away. With this in mind, we decided "Why not?" and went to check on our favorite Cambrian creepy crawlies.

 

Rains had been fierce the past week, so I was expecting the Conasauga to be somewhat high, requiring my water boots. However, when we got there, we were greeted by this:

 

 

 

The collecting area was at least 6 or 7 feet underwater, and the river had essentially become a lake with flowing water. Needless to say, we didn't supplement our brachiopod hunt with a bug hunt.

 

I'm in the middle of taking good pictures of our finds at the moment. I could use a pointer or two at ID (I'm pretty rusty on my Silurian fauna), especially these mysterious "rings" that were on many of the plates. Until then!

[Nimravis]

Nice trip report and glad that you made it to the Dalton site, I agged you on another trip that I made there in December. I feel your pain with the Conasauga, I have seen it that way in the past.

[MeargleSchmeargl]

Here's another family shot:

 

 

I'll start off with a piece showcasing the best preserved of the mystery "ring".

 

 

Here's that ring up close. Any ideas as to an ID?

 

 

Some brachiopod hash plates:

 

 

To be continued...

[MeargleSchmeargl]

More hash plates:

 

 

 

 

 

 

A really nice one:

 

 

From another angle:

 

[MeargleSchmeargl]

And last (but certainly not least!), my personal favorite plate:

 

 

Another angle:

 

 

And I particularly like this one. I think I can see some radial ribs on this one.

 

[henpecked]

Nice collection you have there. Thanks for sharing

[Fossildude19]

The rings are crinoid columnals. 

Neat haul of Silurian material. 

 

 

[Ludwigia]

Just to confirm Tim's analysis. Your mysterious rings are crinoid columnal impressions.

[Monica]

Those are some very pretty brachiopods - congratulations on the finds!!!

 

I'm sure that Adam @Tidgy's Dad would like to have a look at this thread 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Yes, nice crinoid columnals and beautiful brachiopods! 

Shame about Conasauga, though I'm lucky enough to have some pieces from there. (thanks again to Ralph, @Nimravis)

The brachiopods are orthids but I don't know any more, not got any USA Silurian stuff to study, @Peat Burnsmay know more. 

That last hash plate is gorgeous. 

[Uncle Siphuncle]

Cool finds.  Glad you got out.  I was actually thinking of PMing you last week to see how you were doing.

[MeargleSchmeargl]

On 2/23/2019 at 11:35 PM, Fossildude19 said:

The rings are crinoid columnals. 

Neat haul of Silurian material. 

 

 

 

On 2/24/2019 at 4:01 AM, Ludwigia said:

Just to confirm Tim's analysis. Your mysterious rings are crinoid columnal impressions.

 

Does that mean calyces are possible here?

 

 

Interest intensifies 

[Fossildude19]

3 minutes ago, MeargleSchmeargl said:

Does that mean calyces are possible here?

Interest intensifies 

Possible, but unlikely. Usually when there are individual columnals, it indicates a high energy environment, which is bad news for articulated calyces.  

You might find bits and pieces, and disarticulated plates. 

[dalmayshun]

nice hash plates...thanks for the photo of the deep Conasauga river, scary. I've seen it as deep as you anticipated, but like you was surprised by its winter depth. 

[MeargleSchmeargl]

1 hour ago, Fossildude19 said:

Possible, but unlikely. 

 

But hey, that's a better chance than impossible. Another reason to keep coming back, I suppose. 

[westcoast]

Those brachiopods remind me of Eocoelia but it's been a while since I've seen one so take that with a pinch of salt.

[MeargleSchmeargl]

After some digging through this paper, I've read that the 3 main brachiopod lineages are Pentamerus-Pentameroides, Eocoelia and Stricklandia-Costistricklandia.

 

Link: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275042239_Stratigraphy_and_depositional_environments_in_the_Silurian_Red_Mountain_Formation_of_the_southern_Appalachian_basin

 

Discerning what is who is a little more difficult, as I'm not seeing any matches as far as images go.

 

@Peat Burns

[MeargleSchmeargl]

On 2/23/2019 at 10:33 PM, MeargleSchmeargl said:

And I particularly like this one. I think I can see some radial ribs on this one.

 

 

After some restless searching, I may have found a winner as far as the detailed one's ID: Eocoelia hemispherica.

 

 

Anyone agree/disagree?

[Nimravis]

Here is a piece of mine with crinoid columns.

 

[MeargleSchmeargl]

On 3/1/2019 at 11:23 PM, Nimravis said:

Here is a piece of mine with crinoid columns.

 

Neat!