Best place to find intact Crinoid crowns in Texas, the mid-West or New England?

[gwestbrook]

I would welcome even the very small ones, like this one. 

 

 

 

[Fossildude19]

Crinoid crowns are largely non existent in New England, and super rare in nearby Pennsylvania or New York.

 

I think   Louisiana      (meant Alabama) and Indiana are your best bets.

 

 

Anyone answering this needs to keep the locations vague, and PM any details you might be willing to share to the OP.

 

[Jeffrey P]

Crinoid crowns are generally very rare and many of the best places to find them are no longer available. Indiana and Alabama probably have the best concentration of sites where crinoid crowns can be found, but most are on private land. I saw ones from a site in southwestern Colorado that were quite stunning, but couldn't tell you where to look. I've seen some from Texas, Kentucky, New York, and PA but these are found very randomly and there are no reliable spots to find them as far as I know. Sorry.

[SPrice]

This is what is found in western Utah. I will be in that area in a few weeks for a new moon astrophotography session. My plan is daytime -  fossils, nighttime - stars.

 

This pic is "as found" by another forum member a few years ago. Doesn't appear to have been prepped at all. I'm not aware of the dimensions, either.  4-5 inches long is a guess. 

 

Edited April 23 by SPrice

[Newbie_1971]

Do you mean like this?

[FossilDAWG]

I’m not familiar with any sites for complete crinoids in Louisiana.  Indeed, such sites are very rare and I would not expect anyone to disclose them on a publically accessible internet site that is visited by literally thousands of people every month.

 

Don

[FossilNerd]

 

I second what Don said! It is not a good idea at all to post details of sites like this on an internationally accessible public forum. You never know who is watching! 

 

Besides, many of us spend an excessive amount of time trying to find hunting grounds, especially prime locations such as the ones you are looking for. I'd be hard pressed to just divulge that info to a random stranger on the internet.

 

I do see that you have been a member since 2012, but haven't posted much. My suggestion is to be more active here. Once you get to know the other active members, you may just find yourself invited out on a hunt, or be given info about a particular site that is tailored to your fossil interests. 

[gwestbrook]

17 hours ago, Fossildude19 said:

Crinoid crowns are largely non existent in New England, and super rare in nearby Pennsylvania or New York.

 

I think   Louisiana      (meant Alabama) and Indiana are your best bets.

 

 

Anyone answering this needs to keep the locations vague, and PM any details you might be willing to share to the OP.

 

Thank you! I don't know the formations in those areas at all. 

 

[gwestbrook]

13 hours ago, FossilDAWG said:

I’m not familiar with any sites for complete crinoids in Louisiana.  Indeed, such sites are very rare and I would not expect anyone to disclose them on a publically accessible internet site that is visited by literally thousands of people every month.

 

Don

Thanks! I was just hoping they would message me privately, I guess. 

 

[gwestbrook]

1 hour ago, FossilNerd said:

 

I second what Don said! It is not a good idea at all to post details of sites like this on an internationally accessible public forum. You never know who is watching! 

 

Besides, many of us spend an excessive amount of time trying to find hunting grounds, especially prime locations such as the ones you are looking for. I'd be hard pressed to just divulge that info to a random stranger on the internet.

 

I do see that you have been a member since 2012, but haven't posted much. My suggestion is to be more active here. Once you get to know the other active members, you may just find yourself invited out on a hunt, or be given info about a particular site that is tailored to your fossil interests. 

I was very active a few years ago until my dad died and my mom started going downhill and she came to live with me. She passed last year and I'm slowly getting back into it all. 

 

[gwestbrook]

15 hours ago, Newbie_1971 said:

Do you mean like this?

 

1 minute ago, gwestbrook said:

I was very active a few years ago until my dad died and my mom started going downhill and she came to live with me. She passed last year and I'm slowly getting back into it all. 

 

Thanks for the suggestions though.

 

[cngodles]

Western PA, Pennsylvanian age, I've found one, ever, in 5 years of hunting. And even that calyx-only crown was missing one of its plates.

Some people have recovered brittle stars, but even those locations are rare (it was on a golf course) and difficult to find.

More information: https://fossil.15656.com/2021/07/03/endelocrinus-murrysvillensis-a-species-of-crinoid-described-from-the-brush-creek-limestone-published-in-1967/
Cataloged Crinoid Material: https://fossil.15656.com/catalog/search-for/Crinoidea

Edited April 23 by cngodles

[FossilNerd]

3 hours ago, gwestbrook said:

I was very active a few years ago until my dad died and my mom started going downhill and she came to live with me. She passed last year and I'm slowly getting back into it all. 

 

Sorry to hear about your mom and dad.   Life does get in the way of our passions sometimes. 

Hopefully the future is a bit brighter for you. Fossils should help!  

[gwestbrook]

45 minutes ago, FossilNerd said:

Sorry to hear about your mom and dad.   Life does get in the way of our passions sometimes. 

Hopefully the future is a bit brighter for you. Fossils should help!  

Yes, things are getting better now.  Thanks!

[gwestbrook]

19 hours ago, Newbie_1971 said:

Do you mean like this?

Yes

 

[BigKen]

There are several sites in Pontotoc County, Oklahoma (just south of Ada) with staggering quantities of crinoid bits and death plates.  Without focusing on them (my obsession is a large, intact trilobite, which has been elusive), I’ve  found several partial crowns in reasonably good shape.  I suspect that, if I went all in focusing on crinoid crowns, they could be found there.  

[connorp]

This is a very vague question… not entirely sure what you’re looking for. You’ve got about a third of the US in your title.

 

Articulated crinoids are generally rare but can be locally abundant. I have a number of sites in the Midwest that reliably produce specimens, but they took a lot of leg work to find. You just need to put in the work yourself, I doubt anyone is going to hand out sites, especially for fossils with commercial value. Plus the research is half the fun.

[gwestbrook]

14 hours ago, connorp said:

This is a very vague question… not entirely sure what you’re looking for. You’ve got about a third of the US in your title.

 

Articulated crinoids are generally rare but can be locally abundant. I have a number of sites in the Midwest that reliably produce specimens, but they took a lot of leg work to find. You just need to put in the work yourself, I doubt anyone is going to hand out sites, especially for fossils with commercial value. Plus the research is half the fun.

Thanks! Maybe I didn't word it right. I'm not expecting anyone to hand out their sites, or anything like that.  I meant, does anyone know of areas fairly close geographically that will allow me to look on Google Earth and other sites to try and pinpoint some possibilities. Are yours on private land or are they on public lands?  I'm not good at all in negotiating with landowners as to going that route. 

 

[gwestbrook]

This is one of my last posts. I had closed my former account just after my father died, and had second thoughts and recreated it a few months after. I need to try and recreate the Cretaceous fossil collection trips I had gone on when I still had the previous account. 

 

[connorp]

35 minutes ago, gwestbrook said:

Thanks! Maybe I didn't word it right. I'm not expecting anyone to hand out their sites, or anything like that.  I meant, does anyone know of areas fairly close geographically that will allow me to look on Google Earth and other sites to try and pinpoint some possibilities. Are yours on private land or are they on public lands?  I'm not good at all in negotiating with landowners as to going that route. 

 

That strategy will probably not be fruitful. Like I said, crinoids are generally rare but locally abundant. As an example, the Kope Formation in Kentucky can yield some nice crinoids. And there are hundreds of roadcuts which are easily accessible.  But most of the Kope will not regularly yield articulated crinoids. If you just stop at any given road cut at random, you’ll likely find not much besides bryozoans and brachiopods. But if you spend time researching the different layers in the Kope, you’ll actually have a good chance of finding a productive site. Plus, even when in good beds, crinoids often occur only in small pockets, sometimes only 1 sq ft in size. Not something you’ll be able to find any other way except through legwork.