Search the Community

Thanks for the reply. Very interesting. I had to look up "decorticated" LOL. The conchoidal fracture is kinda neat. #3 is so interesting to me. Bubbly effect that grabbed my attention. I tend to agree that #4 & #5 could be plants. Appreciate your input 👌 Someday will return to this locality and search for more. Much to explore and learn! 😊

When a large number of pieces are posted, it really helps if they are numbered. Also, I have no idea of the size of these pieces. Not knowing where they were collected, or some rough age for the pieces, makes an ID a lot harder. Are the pieces hard and heavy like rock? I can definitely see wood/plant cell structure in a number of the pieces. Some look like wood or for others maybe ferns. Cell structure can completely disappear during the mineralization process. So pieces without cell structure can also be fossilized wood/plants. All the pieces need to be looked at under high magnification to clearly see what cell structure, if any, is there for each piece. Plant/wood cell structures are so similar, you really need an expert to get IDs for the pieces. Try taking them to a local museum. Marco Sr.

Looks like Orbiculoidea sp. to me too. But are the other fossils plants?

My wife and I went on a fossil hunting trip yesterday to check out a Triassic spot, New Oxford formation, in northeastern York county, Pennsylvania. It took us a bit to find the spot but once we did, we made a couple nice finds. The first rock is about 30 cm long, about 23 cm wide, and about 15 cm thick. It weighs almost 13 kilograms (about 28 pounds). While I'm not absolutely certain, I think this piece has several tree branches running through it. Branch #1, about 23 cm long and about 3 cm wide Branch #2, about 24 cm long and about 2 cm wide Underneath of branch #2, were several black pieces. I'm guessing they're carbonized pieces of the wood? Branch #3 about 12 cm long and about 3-4 cm wide. Branch #4 (ok maybe this one is more like a twig!) 6 cm long and about 1 cm wide The second rock is about 23 cm long, about 13 cm wide, and about 7 cm thick. It weighs almost 3 kilograms (about 6 pounds). This rock only has one plant fossil that I could see. It is about 8.5 cm long and 1.5 cm across. You can see what appears to be a cast of the branch with an imprint on the side going up from the cast. These last two pieces I'm unsure of whether they are plant fossils or just some interesting geologic somethings. This is mystery piece #1 This is mystery piece #2 This was our first Triassic spot! We were excited to make these finds. After hitting our fair share of Devonian and some Carboniferous spots it was nice to find a different time period and new, to us, fossils! Hopefully, I've correctly identified these finds as plant fossils! If anyone could recommend a resource to help us identify Triassic plants that would be very helpful!

Welcome to the fossil forum. I am pretty good at identifying fossils, especially in Florida. The animal fossils I find are not organs, but bone, tusk and teeth. To help here, you need a geologist rather than a paleontologist. Most rocks and stones are formed by geologic activity millions of years ago. This is not to say that you would not find fossils of plants and animals that existed millions of year ago. but I see no evidence of such fossils here. Lets see what others say..

Hi, I´m living in Germany and I love fossils since I´m a little boy. Me and my brother grew up in an old coal mining area in West Germany and would found fossilized plants and ferns behind our garden.

@Missourian Thank you for the very detailed info and great photos. I've a similar generalized association in our earliest Pennsylvanian formation here which directly overlies the last of the Mississippian formations. The plant remains I stumbled across would represent the first land plants in our section of New Mexico. Rootlets with lots of cordaite strap sections overlying them. Plus, a sprinkle of fern leaves intermixed.

I've interpreted these as roots of Cordaites (though I could be wrong). The Winterset limestone in my area (Kansas City) likely represents two marine cycles divided by an erosional surface. The limestone at the top of the lower unit is often oxidized and riddled with the rootlets. An illustration of this horizon in a stratigraphic chart (orange level at middle, with maroon rootlets): This oxidized root-bearing horizon is present across the entire metro. Also widespread is a consistent scattering of Cordaites leaves in the limestones above the disconformity throughout the area (indicated as 'ferns' in the chart above). A few of these leaves can be found in nearly every exposure of the upper Winterset. I figure things could have gone something like this: 1. The lower units were deposited in a deep marine cycle. 2. Sea depth dropped, exposing the sediments. The erosional surface, now exposed to air or very shallow water, became oxidized. 3. Cordaite mangroves became established, shifting across the area as conditions varied. Their roots penetrated the older sediments below. 4. Various processes deposited sediments above. Pieces of cordaite plants were incorporated. 5. The sea continued to rise, but not to the extent of the previous cycle (see sea-level curve in chart above). This large wood fragment (also shown in the post above) may be part of a crown with branches, or it could be a base ('stump') with roots that could indicate a possible mangrove-style plant: Example of Cordaites leaves in the upper Winterset throughout the metro area... Leaf bundle from far northeast Kansas City: Scattered leaves from north-central Kansas City, found near the 'stump' above Leaf from southeast Kansas City: A piece of wood, also from southeast Kansas City:

I was hiking up a ridge between two washes looking at exposed formations for plant and insect fossils in mid-to-upper Pennsylvanian formations. I came across a possible sandstone formation with no evident bed layering. This formation was 1-1.5 meter thick and appears to have plant fragments scattered throughout. Perhaps the fragments are actually the result of this being a high energy deposition area and sedimentation of another type was broken up and preserved in the matrix. Preservation is poor. No evidence of shells of other sea fauna seen in examining the specimens. In the first photo is 'looks like' branching of some type is preserved as seen in the upper middle. The length of that branched object is about 200mm or 8 inches. Branching like this is not something I'd expect for ferns or other plants of the time like cordaites, calamites, etc. Second photo shows larger objects of maximum length 40 centimeters (about 16 inches). The top of the central most piece is what has me thinking this is sedimentation that was broken up and captured in the matrix. There seems to be layering which is not something I'd expect of plants from about 300 million years ago in this area. Again, there seems to be a lot of smaller fragments captured in the rest of the matrix. A 3rd photo showing another object. The lower, larger object suggestive of branching Any ideas of what I might have been seeing? Perhaps some suggestions of what I should try to look for when I cross this formation again? Thanks, Kato.

Fish and plants have certainly been found in the Mahantango, but are rare and only found in specific layers. My friend has found Bothriolepis, and I've collected many branches identified as Archaeopteris sp.

Rare 3D fossils show that some early trees had forms unlike any you've ever seen Cell Press, February 2, 2024, ScienceDaily Weird ancient tree from before dinosaurs found in Canadian quarry Before age of dinosaurs, plants experimented with bizarre forms, discovery shows Emily Chung · CBC News · Posted: Feb 02, 2024 The open access paper is; Robert A. Gastaldo, Patricia G. Gensel, Ian J. Glasspool, Steven J. Hinds, Olivia A. King, Duncan McLean, Adrian F. Park, Matthew R. Stimson, Timothy Stonesifer. Enigmatic fossil plants with three-dimensional, arborescent-growth architecture from the earliest Carboniferous of New Brunswick, Canada. Current Biology, 2024; DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.01.011 DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.01.011 Yours, Paul H.

Congrats on a spectacular Stigmaria from Knob Noster! "Knob Noster (Johnson Country, Missouri) is a relatively new Pennsylvanian site uncovered in 1990 containing a flora and fauna preserved within ironstone concretions (Hannibal et al. 2003). Its fossil assemblage was found to be similar in composition to the Windsor and Braidwood of Mazon Creek sites. The concretions were found to originate from either the delta area or the estuary area while the plants were represented by the foliage of ferns, stems, seeds, cones and the trunks of arborescent plants. Investigations of this site are in progress and could potentially yield new findings." text from: Pacyna, G., Zdebska, D. 2012 Carboniferous Plants Preserved within Sideritic Nodules: A Remarkable State of Preservation Providing a Wealth of Information. Acta Palaeobotanica, 52(2):247-269 PDF LINK Hannibal J.T., Keiper J.B., Lemay S., Mckenzie, S. 2003 Knob Noster: A New Upper Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) Lagerstätte in Missouri Containing Millipeds (Diplopoda), Insects, Crustaceans, Vertebrates, Plants and other Terrestrial and Brackish Water Organisms. Geological Society of America, North-Central Section: 37th Annual Meeting, Session 22:6, Paper: 50110 LINK from my collection: Hemimylacris clintoniana – Pennsylvanian – Knob Noster Formation, Missouri

Could also be a root if this was found in the earth where plants grow. By the way, please make reference here to your previous posts about this rock to make it easier for people to follow which rock you're talking about. Not everyone is following all of your posts automatically.

In 2004, the oldest flying fossil insect fossil, a trace in the Wamsutta Formation, was described in Nature. The locality was several hundred feet from where an extensive exposure of the formation was located in a cut. I was planning to try and locate the locality, but due to time issues I went back to this cut, which I had visited once before. Several other localities containing abundant plants and ichnofossils are located in the vicinity. Here is an image of a shaly horizon that was between thick conglomeratic layers. There are three of these major ones, with the lower being darker and being more of a sandstone. The middle shale layer. Most of the finds were from here, although the lower member had some complete Cordaites leaves that I forgot to take back. Here are the finds from the lower section. Occasionally, there were smoother sections of bioturbated mud between the sandy shale, where well defined trails were preserved. Some raindrop prints. Here is a possible arthropod print, that is very badly defined. In these higher energy layers, some fragmentary plants were found. A Cordaites? bit was found, with some clasts of quartz just below. Some small pebbles of quartz. Now, here are the plants from the middle shaly layer. A Cordaites? fragment, with several other pieces. A certain layer within the shaly horizon was full of these pieces, however there was little variety and there was little need to fill my shoeboxes with these. Some specimens, showed what seemed like borings on them. Here is the most distinct example. I found these, also on plant fragments at three separate localities in the North Attleboro area, including one of the Rhode Island Formation. In the talus I found a decent, but either badly preserved or badly exposed fern. Just from the shape, there are quite a few possibilities on what it might be. Hee is a quite well defined tetrapod footprint I found in a bioturbated layer of the section, which split readily into relatively thin and flat slabs, which allowed for an examination for prints. However, there is quite a bit missing on the other side of the split. And last, not a fossil but a geological oddity. It is obviously a clast from one of the conglomeratic horizons, but something is weird about it. Inside, are more pebbles. It is a conglomerate, that has weathered out and become, itself, a clast of the Wamsutta conglomerate! The clasts within this pebble are of a quite different nature than the ones in the Wamsutta. Though the finds are not very spectacular, the conglomerate pebble certainly made up for it.

L.S., Wanted to share this "mini ecosystem" in fossilized form. The photos below show a rhizome of Osmunda pluma Miller 1967, a member of the royal fern family, from the Paleogene of the Fort Union Group (probably the Sentinel Butte Fm.) near Glenn Ullin in Morton County, North Dakota. On the first photo you can see a central stele surrounded by "eyes", which are cross-sections through the petioles of the leaves of the fern (see for comparison this section made through an extant Osmunda cinnamomea rhizome). More to the top and bottom of the photo, parallel lines are visible. These are the remnants of a woody texture, probably of some kind of gymnosperm (see also the second image, a flatbed scan of the entire slab containing the fern rhizome). According to Miller (1967, p. 143) the fern was growing on a so-called "nurse log": when a tree in the woods falls over and starts to decay, this can provide an excellent opportunity for new plants to grow! See for example these lovely examples of modern nurse logs. Cheers, Tim Fern rhizome of Osmunda pluma Miller 1967 showing central stele and petioles The fern rhizome is embedded in a woody texture, interpreted as a nurse log.

Florida doesn’t know what’s going on. 85 deg F two weeks ago and 40’s this morning. Up and down like a roller coaster. My daughters “Hawaiian Punch” hibiscus randomly popped out a couple winter blooms. The winter orchids opened bloom numbers 1&2. In about two weeks I there will over 40 blooms in this section of the air plants garden. Fingers crossed no freezes or I’ll have to bring the whole orchid lot inside so the blooms don’t fall. several of them we cross pollinated this past flowering so fingers crossed for some new color combos!! and to put a nail in the , “sorry Florida it’s not March yet” coffin. One of the carnivores came out of hibernation way too soon. This is probably as developed as it will get before dying because it’s so early but I’ll post pics of all the species in late March or April. These end up crazy colors and the fly traps will start feeding around that time too. Off to work, have a great day Jp

The Peltosaurus is from the White River Formation of South Dakota, often called The Badlands. I don't like that terminology because Badlands refers to any area where the terrain is rough and has very few plants. Badlands exist in many many formations here in the American west including the White River, Bridger, Washakie, Wasatch, Hell Creek, etc. Rant over.

Part Two... Instead of starting a new thread, I'll just continue on this one. The holdup was using my phone for the pics and Google Photos was a bit slow to update my account with the next batch of images. Well, after all the excitement of finding two less common ammonites in the same concretion, I found a few more keepers and decided to head north to the second destination to scout an area I had marked on Google Maps but not yet explored ... a canyon in Helper, Utah. From Wiki- Helper, Utah was founded as a “helper engine” town in 1881. Here trains would pick up an extra engine to help them up the steep, relentless grade of Price Canyon and over Soldier Summit. At the beginning of the 20th century, Helper was a booming railroading and coal mining community. Some pics as I headed north out of Mounds Reef. You can see a few concretions in the background many of which have weathered open. And dozens of concretions eroded out of the cuesta face having rolled down the hill. For imagining the scale of the cliff. The concretions visible are all over 1.5 meters diameter. I estimate the tumble down the hill is 50-70 feet of pain if one misstepped. And just before leaving the Cretaceous formation zone is something completely different in the background on my left. This next stop in Helper was another 300 feet above the previous location of Mounds Reef near Price, Utah which was 5,600' ASL. So the drive above town put me at 6,000 when I drove up on top of the canyon to the outcrop. What I didn't count on was the sporadic patches of snow up there and the sun having warmed up and turned the snow packed road into sporadic mud patches. My once solid orange Element is now two toned. Top half orange, bottom half brown. The overnight freeze and daytime thaw had lifted and loosened the top inch or two of topsoil creating a fun, mushy drive. It didn't take long to realize I would not be scouting very long and definitely not muddying up the inside of my vehicle. The patchy snow covered enough ground that I was unable to see anything besides snow, brown plants pinyon pines and juniper trees. What I was looking for was light brown topsoil and isolated raised areas of light orange sandstone. Here's a borrowed image from anther fossil hunter showing the soil colors and what the orange sandstone contains. Hence my enthusiasm to explore this area. I kept on the gas pedal slow and steady so as to not get stuck having never driven offroad in these conditions with my Honda. But spring will arrive soon in the southern desert and by March it will be dry. It's fairly obvious that I am looking forward to put some time in this area of BLM land. I can see 4-5 other orange soil areas in this image alone. Here's pics of the finds to wrap up this adventure. All will need some prepping. The last one is a mystery. Geologic or trace fossil? Found as part of a capstone above the concretion layer. It's limestone, imo, which is why I think it could be acidic erosion patterns? Or burrows? Three partial ammonites - all might be Prionocylus hyatti in both robust and gracile forms. The double ammo concretion with some water brushed on for contrast. Lots of careful prepping for this one. I have calendared a number of trips to the desert to coincide with the new moon phase during May, June and July to have a both fossils in the daylight and astrophotography at night. And will probably have a few spontaneous trips before and after the calendared events. I'm also thinking of booking a trip to Texas for a long weekend in the Dallas-Ft Worth area with a guide. Hmmmm...this kinda looks like the Morrison Formation...Is that an Allosaurus sticking out of that knoll on the left?

I agree Rockwood, here in the UK we have well preserved liverworts in the Rhynie chert deposits in Scotland. Plants with the morphology we recognise today appeared in the Devonian.

I think stem and leaves came later. Land plants from that time looked more like liverworts, or moss at best.

Hi all, We spent yesterday in a different section of the quarry I posted about here. This section yielded some nice fish, plants and even another temnospondyl! Phyllotheca or a different horsetail Xenacanthid pieces Various fish bits A nice nodule with a fish inside I will post some more photos of the temnospondyl once it gets excavated, but here is a loose section from the rear of the skull. After our quarry visit we went to a terrific Eocene plant locality, will post some photos from there next!