What Kind Of Fossil Sand Star Is This?

[matthew textor]

hi can anyone tell me the name of this sand star fossil

here is a photo

I am not shure of the period

the sand star came from the state south carolina

[Guest Nicholas]

That is an echinoderm, however I'm not able to ID it past that. I'm sure someone else on the forum can give some more information.

[Guest bmorefossil]

That is an echinoderm, however I'm not able to ID it past that. I'm sure someone else on the forum can give some more information.

yep, very nice find by the way, where did you find it?

[mommabetts]

That is a very nice echinoderm you have there!!!!!!!!

[Major]

How exciting- first identification of mine! lol:

That would be Hardouinia kellumi, shown here:

http://cretaceousfossils.com/content/view/134/165/

The star on the back is known as Aristotle's Lantern, the mouth of the Echinoderm.

Very nice find!

[Harry Pristis]

hi can anyone tell me the name of this sand star fossil

here is a photo

I am not shure of the period

the sand star came from the state south carolina

In the thumbnail your echinoid resembles a Cretaceous Hardouinia sp. Your image is too large for me to open, so I cannot be more confident than that.

Give some thought to these suggestions for posting useful images:

Do you have editing software that came with your camera or with your scanner? Use the image-editing software (or download shareware at http://www.irfanview.com/ ).

You can be as creative as you want to be with the software, but the following basic things will improve anyone's images.

LIGHT IT UP. Use as much ambient light as possible to reduce shadows. Halogen bulbs are better for photography than tungsten filament bulbs. The new compact flourescent bulbs come in a "daylight" (6500K) version that you can use in any (non-dimming) fixture.

BRIGHTEN AND CONTRAST. BRIGHTEN the image until the fossil appears slightly washed, then adjust the CONTRAST until the fossil is bright and sharp and is a good color-match. Practice this until you get a feel for it.

CROP, CROP, CROP. Again, use the image-editing software to crop the image to only what is pertinent. Leave only a narrow margin around the fossil. The more of your kitchen counter-top in the image, the smaller the fossil image will be.

REDUCE THE FILE SIZE. The images directly from a camera usually are too large for posting directly to a forum. You can constrain the proportions of your image to produce exactly 500 KB (I routinely use 700 - 800 KB for my images now).

First posted

Sep 21 2007, 02:46 PM