chad_lariviere Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 (edited) Found this in Calgary Alberta, Royal Tyrell Museum has dated the plant and aquatic life on exterior to be 450- 500 million years old however, there is a clear vertebra in the core of the sample. Can someone advise please. Edited January 10 by chad_lariviere Additional photos 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBkansas Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 What did the Tyrell think about the vert? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chad_lariviere Posted January 10 Author Share Posted January 10 They cannot explain it its 200 million years off compared to the other fossils but in the core! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joy_Fossils Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 I can’t see the vertebrae. I’d you don’t mind, could you circle where the vertebrae is? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baking Geologist Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 I’m not convinced that’s a vertebrae. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fossildude19 Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 I think this is what he is referring to as a vertebra: - Which, I don't think it is. 4 Tim - VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER VFOTM --- APRIL - 2015 __________________________________________________ "In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." John Muir ~ ~ ~ ~ ><))))( *> About Me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chad_lariviere Posted January 10 Author Share Posted January 10 (edited) I have circled it for you in this image. One solid vertebrae it is actually part of the sacrum of the spine. Edited January 10 by chad_lariviere Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex S. Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 That looks like a partial ammonite to me I think it would need to be prepped further to tell if it's a vertebra especially to tell what location the vertebra is from. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chad_lariviere Posted January 10 Author Share Posted January 10 I hope thus diagram helps . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chad_lariviere Posted January 10 Author Share Posted January 10 Each stage of the sacrum from the base of the spine to the tailbone is this identical pattern. Anybody that is deeply familiar and educated with advanced mammalian anatomy will recognize it. No offense meant to anybody. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fossilus Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 1 minute ago, chad_lariviere said: Each stage of the sacrum from the base of the spine to the tailbone is this identical pattern. Anybody that is deeply familiar and educated with advanced mammalian anatomy will recognize it. No offense meant to anybody. Doesn't look like any mammal sacrum that I've ever seen, and I've looked at many, but I'm sure someone will respond if they see what you do. I agree that it looks like a partial ammonite, needs to be prepped out. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex S. Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 I happen to be deeply educated in mammalogy, comparative animal physiology, and evolutionary biology. I don't take offense but it doesn't look like a sacrum in addition to many sacrums are fused particularly among mammals which judging on the age can probably be ruled out. Regardless I think it's a great find but not something you can make a call like that without it being prepared. 4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FranzBernhard Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 1 hour ago, chad_lariviere said: aquatic life on exterior to be 450- 500 million years old however, I see belemnites on the outside, which are much younger then the age given! Franz Bernhard 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chad_lariviere Posted January 10 Author Share Posted January 10 This is a very special specimen Alex.S. I have no problem handing it over to be prepped and examined. There are aquatic and terrestrial plant species as well as crustaceans. If I could be referred to a specialist I would appreciate that. I have reached out to professor Evans at the University of Toronto for help. Unfortunately not everyone in the scientific community likes things they cannot explain and it gets immediately deleted from record. That's why I came here for extra eyes and knowledge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TqB Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 (edited) I think this looks like a Mesozoic concretion (Jurassic?) with ammonite and belemnites. That of course would make a vertebra more likely but I think it's a chance arrangement of septarian surfaces and calcite veins. There's no sign of internal bone texture there. Similar brown septarian calcite, often mistaken for bone, is typical of many nodules I've seen from the Lower Jurassic and I'm sure occurs elsewhere. EDIT: Looking at a geological map of Calgary, it's likely to be Cretaceous, so no older than 145my. Edited January 10 by TqB 2 Tarquin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chad_lariviere Posted January 10 Author Share Posted January 10 If the fossils on the exterior of this magnificent specimen are dating older than Jurassic and Mesozoic, what does that say for what's in the core? In the direct center with precision measurements. How is that possible? Additionally has anyone observed the diagram with the identical sacral bone patterns and the identical cartilage pattern that I provided? Please take a close look at both. I understand this shouldn't exist but I have some very solid "rock solid" lol evidence. And serious questions as to how, why, and when. Please let's be scientific and look at all aspects. And observation is key in scientific method. Please take every variable into account before a final conclusion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ludwigia Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 38 minutes ago, chad_lariviere said: If I could be referred to a specialist I'm sorry if I don't quite understand here. You mentioned in your opening statements that the "Royal Tyrell Museum" has dated the fossils on the exterior. Was this not a specialist? Aren't there a lot of experts there who could identify the rest of the fossils? I'm just not quite able to follow this, since I am just seeing a lot of what appear to be Mesozoic fossils here. I also agree with what Alex S. is saying. 1 Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger http://www.steinkern.de/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClearLake Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 This is a neat looking concretion, but I'm not convinced that the item in the center is a vertebra. If you blow it up (see below), it does not really look like bone to me. Maybe more shell like or perhaps mineralogic. I could imagine a cross section of a brachiopod (or bivalve) hinge area, more easily than bone. 13 minutes ago, chad_lariviere said: Additionally has anyone observed the diagram with the identical sacral bone patterns and the identical cartilage pattern that I provided Yes, I have looked at your diagram that you posted. The two diagrams at the bottom are of the surface of a sacrum, I don't think you are suggesting that is what this is. It is a cross section of something. The top diagram you posted shows the ossification centers in what I believe are the embryonic stage of a a sacrum, I'm doubtful that is what you have here. I see a vague resemblance but that is not "rock solid evidence". 53 minutes ago, chad_lariviere said: There are aquatic and terrestrial plant species as well as crustaceans Can you point out the various plant types present? I am not a plant guy, but I'm not seeing them, maybe they are the little "sticks" I see in one of the pictures? And the crustaceans too? 20 minutes ago, chad_lariviere said: Please let's be scientific and look at all aspects. And observation is key in scientific method. Please take every variable into account before a final conclusion. Good advice! That applies to the OP as well as the responders. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kane Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 I have serious doubts professional paleontologists delete what they cannot explain. That seems a somewhat glib and unfair generalization. 5 ...How to Philosophize with a Hammer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FossilDAWG Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 This is a very interesting specimen, but some things do not add up. It is stated that the Royal Tyrell Museum has dated the specimen to 450-500 million years old. That would put it in the Ordovician or even the Cambrian. The concretion has an obvious ammonite in it, quite similar to Jurassic ammonites that can be found in the Fernie Shale exposed west of Calgary in the Rocky Mountains such as around the town of Fernie. A Jurassic age is also supported by the obvious belemnites. The reference to "plant and aquatic life on the surface" as a basis for dating the concretion as 450-500 million years old is nonsensical, as "plant life" at that time was marine algae at best (and not evident in the specimen), and "aquatic life" at that time would have been trilobites, brachiopods, or hyolithids, none of which is present. I am skeptical that any paleontologist with any knowledge whatsoever of Alberta geology or paleontology would misidentify ammonites and belemnites as Ordovician "aquatic life". Perhaps a docent only trained to talk about dinosaurs to tour groups could make that mistake. Who was the actual person who provided the identification? Museums are institutions of course, they can't identify anything, it is people who work at museums who do that. There is an interesting fossil present, that may be a vertebra with some long processes (not a mammalian sacrum). It needs to be prepped further to identify it. My very preliminary guess is that it could be a fish vertebra. I am confident in saying this is likely to be a Jurassic concretion, possibly derived from marine Jurassic rocks exposed some distance west of Calgary in the general Fernie area. I'm curious about the circumstances of its discovery in the Calgary area. Was it loose on the ground? If so it may have been transported, likely by people. As one possibility, Native Americans would sometimes pick up unusual or interesting rocks. A Cambrian trilobite from the Cranbrook BC area was found at an archeological site in the Fraser Valley of BC, hundreds of kilometers to the west. If it was found in situ in bedrock (and so Cretaceous in the Calgary area) , it could be a gastrolith, which would be amazing in itself. Or it could have been found in some sort of glacial till, though I am not sure about the role of glaciers in transporting bedrock cobbles in the Rocky Mountains. Don 8 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TqB Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 (edited) 5 minutes ago, FossilDAWG said: A Jurassic age is also supported by the obvious belemnites. Thanks for that, I thought they looked more Jurassic than Cretaceous! I'm still seeing the vertebra-like patch as a septarian calcite structure. Edited January 10 by TqB 1 1 Tarquin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chad_lariviere Posted January 10 Author Share Posted January 10 Kane, It is true with all science disciplines. If the people in control don't like it they bury it. If it proves the ones in power wrong they ostracize it. For example the Smithsonian, how much history have they covered up? How many archeologists and paleontologists have they discredited just so they can have their perfect past that they want to portray? Darwin, divinci and so on all pushed aside by people with bigger self ideals than progress. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kane Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 I do not share your view, and know far too many colleagues in the sciences who exemplify incredible integrity in their respective fields. And, since science is not about proof (which would be a rationalist-deductive approach as opposed to science's empirical-inductive method), the question of proof is moot. Science is never truly settled, and that is baked right into the empirical method. 3 1 3 ...How to Philosophize with a Hammer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClearLake Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 3 hours ago, chad_lariviere said: Can someone advise please. We have given plenty of advice/comments. We have also asked numerous questions to help determine what you have, almost all of which have gone unanswered. We are trying to help you identify your interesting concretion, but it is a two way street. If you only came here looking for a rubber stamp of your already formulated ideas, that is unlikely to happen unless the answer is obvious (this one is not obvious). 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EMP Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 I’m not quite sure how the people at the museum arrived at the 450-500 Mya date, considering the large ammonite fragment. I agree with the others that it’s clearly a Mesozoic fossil, probably from the Jurassic or Cretaceous going by the geology in the area. That’s also backed up by the belemnites. My guess is the person at the museum saw the shell, wasn’t an expert, and just said it was a brachiopod or something and those were common 450-500 Mya, but that’s just a hunch. As for the vertebra, I don’t think it’s mammalian. I suppose there could be a very slim possibility it’s a fish vertebra as was suggested above, but the whole thing looks too asymmetric for that IMO. Given there’s a clear crack down the middle of it, and it’s in a broken nodule/concretion, my money is on some mineralization. A cool find, just not a 500 million year old whale vertebra. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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