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Leaf imprint? Wood fragment? Blakeley formation (Seattle)


winnph

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I set my 8 year old to work with a rubber mallet and old screwdriver on a landscape boulder in a SE Seattle neighborhood where the bedrock is the Blakeley formation, and where the homeowner was pretty sure their boulders were local bedrock. This was his favorite find, I said it looks like a bit of leaf/seed pod/wood to me. Anyone have thoughts about what it is? It measures almost exactly 1.0 cm x 0.5 cm.

IMG_20190404_131720.jpg

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Here are a couple other imprints he found in the same boulder that look like they could maybe be leaves/wood fragments to me...

IMG_20190404_132005.jpg

IMG_20190404_132212.jpg

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No idea about the impression, but I do like the name of the formation.

 

Don Blakeley

Alabama

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8 minutes ago, gobbler716 said:

No idea about the impression, but I do like the name of the formation.

 

Don Blakeley

Alabama

:D nice! Here's what the local geology map says about it

Screenshot_20190404-144629.png

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Looks like bits and pieces of wood and other vegetation that is commonly known as floor tile. Floor tile is composed of all the debris that falls on the ground. Sometimes that debris is covered by silt or windblown sediments and is fossilized. Some of it can be very extensive and quite thick (think yards and feet). I tried to find a photo online but couldn't. Just imagine all the sticks and leaves on the ground getting fossilized in one large hunk and looking like the landscaping wood chips you're familiar with. Sometimes the ground is completely covered, sometimes only sparsely, depending on location, climate, season, and amount and types of vegetation and the incline of the ground.

  • I found this Informative 1

 

 

Mark.

 

Fossil hunting is easy -- they don't run away when you shoot at them!

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22 minutes ago, Mark Kmiecik said:

Looks like bits and pieces of wood and other vegetation that is commonly known as floor tile. Floor tile is composed of all the debris that falls on the ground. Sometimes that debris is covered by silt or windblown sediments and is fossilized. Some of it can be very extensive and quite thick (think yards and feet). I tried to find a photo online but couldn't. Just imagine all the sticks and leaves on the ground getting fossilized in one large hunk and looking like the landscaping wood chips you're familiar with. Sometimes the ground is completely covered, sometimes only sparsely, depending on location, climate, season, and amount and types of vegetation and the incline of the ground.

 

Thanks! That makes a lot of sense. It would explain how easily he was finding what looked like many leaf fragments in piles, but not really many single leaves with clear edges.

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I don't claim to know, but I hear about charcoal being an indication of burning. These look a bit like charcoal fragments ?

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17 hours ago, Rockwood said:

I don't claim to know, but I hear about charcoal being an indication of burning. These look a bit like charcoal fragments ?

 

Definitely looks blackened! Not sure if that would be from fire or from chemical reactions with the sediment, but either way it was fun for him. I stopped by there today on my way to another outcrop of the same formation, and took these photos on the other side of the boulder he was whacking the other day, and I'd agree they do look like charred bits of wood/plant matter. 

charcoal1.jpg

charcoal2.jpg

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