Coal Fossils

[Fullux]

Howdy all,

 

Found some plant fossils inside some coal plates eroding out if a creek in Edmonson County.

 

This one is pretty clearly a stigmaria and I've labeled it as Lepidodendrales indet.

 

 

 

 

This next one I'm pretty sure is a wood fragment from a cordaites, though, I could be wrong. To my knowledge, cordaites is the only woody plant in the area. I compared the grain to that of some cordaites petrified wood and it looks pretty similar.

 

 

 

 

this next one is on the same plate as the previous one. I'm not entirely sure what it is but it looks similar to the grain of palm or bamboo wood. I want to say this is pith from a Calamites but I'm unsure.

 

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This appears to be a leaf impression, I'm guessing a species of calamites, though possibly some sort of pteridosperm.

 

 

I also found some large calamites stems in the same site in a coal plate but I was unable to take them with me, as they were very brittle and falling apart. I unfortunately do not have any pictures, but they did have visible nodes.

[Mark Kmiecik]

Even though the specimens are fragmentary and not in a really great state of presevation, I think your ID is pretty much dead on.

[Fullux]

30 minutes ago, Mark Kmiecik said:

Even though the specimens are fragmentary and not in a really great state of presevation, I think your ID is pretty much dead on.

You think I was right on the Calamites pith?

[Mark Kmiecik]

1 minute ago, Fullux said:

You think I was right on the Calamites pith?

 

Yes. Most probably. As I said, fragmentary and poor preservation make specimens difficult to ID with any certainty. The ID's you have suggested are in the range of most probable possibilities. In other words most people would agree, but none of us can be absolutely sure, except in the case of the Stigmaria.

[Fullux]

2 hours ago, Mark Kmiecik said:

 

Yes. Most probably. As I said, fragmentary and poor preservation make specimens difficult to ID with any certainty. The ID's you have suggested are in the range of most probable possibilities. In other words most people would agree, but none of us can be absolutely sure, except in the case of the Stigmaria.

I nearly screamed when I split the plate that stigmaria was in and saw it in there, as I didn't know they could be found inside coal.