Cool microfossils

[Kcee]

Hello all,

I believe that one of these is a foraminifera, not too sure if that tiny bivalve and snail would be considered one or not. Anyone have any ideal what period these may be from? Was digging some old bivalves and gastropods out of some sandstone and came across a boulder that had hundreds of microfossils mixed in it's debris. The size range from what you see here to less than 0.50mm. Some if this stuff is really cool looking.

[JohnJ]

The first two are forams, although I do not know what species.

[Tidgy's Dad]

Love that foram in the second photo. 

Nice finds.

[digit]

Fossils are not all about finding the largest meg tooth (though many would vociferously disagree).

 

I enjoy picking through fine matrix for micro chondrichthyan (shark and ray) teeth. My treasures are small--on the order of a millimeter but I think you've got me beat with these little gems. I've recently picked up an inexpensive microscope with an HDMI camera that allows me to search while looking at large images on my desktop computer monitor (greatly speeding up my searching and making it more comfortable as well). I'm interested in what kind of scope you are using to search for your tiny finds and what you used to image them--the pictures above are very nice.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Kcee]

Thanks JohnJ & Tidgy's Dad, these are some of the larger micro specimen that were found, some were so small that I could not even began to guess their true size, I will try to show some of the smaller ones later. Here's a few more photos of some micro-gastropods. I've been told by micro paleontologist that some of these went extinct about 2.5 millions years ago. 

To Digit: I will try to get the info on the scope I used to you tomorrow so please bare with me.

[digit]

Reminds me of one of my favorite CBC radio shows--the Vinyl Cafe. The motto of the fictional world's smallest record store in the stories told in that show was: "We may not be big, but we're small."

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Rumi]

The two images of the foraminiferan show a specimen of the genus Elphidium, which to the best of my knowledge first appeared in the Eocene.  It is abundant in the oceans of today, and there are many distinct species.  E.g., Murray's Atlas of the British Foraminifera illustrates eight species extant in the waters around the British Isles.

 

Nice finds!

[Kcee]

On 6/11/2019 at 7:47 AM, digit said:

Fossils are not all about finding the largest meg tooth (though many would vociferously disagree).

 

I enjoy picking through fine matrix for micro chondrichthyan (shark and ray) teeth. My treasures are small--on the order of a millimeter but I think you've got me beat with these little gems. I've recently picked up an inexpensive microscope with an HDMI camera that allows me to search while looking at large images on my desktop computer monitor (greatly speeding up my searching and making it more comfortable as well). I'm interested in what kind of scope you are using to search for your tiny finds and what you used to image them--the pictures above are very nice.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

Here's a photos of the scope that was used to capture the photos shown, I do not use a scope to search through the debris for specimen, I use a magnifying glass to search, I find that method to be faster and easier. 

[peystone]

Incredible little pieces

[GallinaPinta]

Absolutely stunning micro specimens. Great finds!

[Kcee]

Thanks GallinaPinta. 

[Arizona Chris]

Many of those look like the hordes of tiny gastropods we find in the Permian limestones here in Arizona.

[Herb]

for foram info try foraminifera.eu

[Kcee]

On 6/10/2020 at 7:19 PM, Herb said:

for foram info try foraminifera.eu

Thanks, there's a lot of great info at that site.