fishguy Posted September 26, 2013 Share Posted September 26, 2013 I am working with a group that is researching and discribing fossil cephs we have found here in Iowa in the Cedar Valley Group of the Devonian. I will post a few pics of some of the fossils we have found. We would like to see if anyone has any info on them from other parts of the country. We have several papers by R. H.Fower "Cherry Valley Cephalopods" and others from Michigan. If you have found anything that looks like what we have let me know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishguy Posted September 26, 2013 Author Share Posted September 26, 2013 More pics Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caleb Posted September 26, 2013 Share Posted September 26, 2013 Here is one I picked up in the Klien Quarry in Coralville, IA. I would love to put a name to it. I'm very much looking forward to the culmination of the work you guys have been doing. Caleb Midwestpaleo.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishguy Posted September 27, 2013 Author Share Posted September 27, 2013 Thanks we are slowly moving forward on this project. We want to do it right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncle Siphuncle Posted September 27, 2013 Share Posted September 27, 2013 spectacular stuff! Grüße, Daniel A. Wöhr aus Südtexas "To the motivated go the spoils." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
squalicorax Posted September 27, 2013 Share Posted September 27, 2013 Here are a few from my local Middle Devonian dolomite in Milwaukee another another another another Any thoughts on genera for these ? My Flickr Page of My Collection: http://www.flickr.com/photos/79424101@N00/sets Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishguy Posted September 27, 2013 Author Share Posted September 27, 2013 (edited) They look like an Acleistceras sp. Don't know which one. The first picture may be something different cant really tell it could be like the gyrconic shapped one in the second group of pics i posted. We think it is a halloceras sp. not for sure. I would bet that Calebs is very simular to these too Edited September 27, 2013 by fishguy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishguy Posted October 2, 2013 Author Share Posted October 2, 2013 Anyone have anything they can help us with? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrangellian Posted October 3, 2013 Share Posted October 3, 2013 Dan said it right - Spectacular! I have always wanted one of those ramshorn type Paleozoic nautiloids since seeing them in the fossil books during elementary school (course it wasn't the only thing..) but it's good to see pics of them like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishguy Posted October 3, 2013 Author Share Posted October 3, 2013 We are finding two varieties. One variety is like the one shown with the inside coil not touching and one where the coils touch. We think the family might be Tetranodoceras or Halleroceras Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrangellian Posted October 5, 2013 Share Posted October 5, 2013 Interesting. Hope you get the info you need. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishguy Posted October 31, 2013 Author Share Posted October 31, 2013 Anyone have anything that might help us??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
piranha Posted October 31, 2013 Share Posted October 31, 2013 Anyone have anything that might help us??? Do you need any special publications? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishguy Posted November 1, 2013 Author Share Posted November 1, 2013 (edited) Anything that may help us identify any of the fossils we have been finding we have a paper by R.H. Flower " Cherry Valley Cephalopods". Any other papers would be of help or any repositories or collections that may have examples of simular fossils would be of help too. Edited November 1, 2013 by fishguy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
squalicorax Posted November 1, 2013 Share Posted November 1, 2013 Here is the paper on the Cephalopod fauna from Milwaukee. I feel they are contemporary faunas Restorations of Certain Devonian Cephalopods with Descriptions of New Species.pdf My Flickr Page of My Collection: http://www.flickr.com/photos/79424101@N00/sets Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishguy Posted November 4, 2013 Author Share Posted November 4, 2013 Thanks we will compare what we have to see if anything looks similar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishguy Posted November 11, 2013 Author Share Posted November 11, 2013 I am looking for copies of these two papers if anyone has a copy or knows where i could get a hard or digital copy. These have some posible matches to the fossils we are writing about. Meek & Worthen, Ill Geol Survey, vol 3 (1868) p 446-7, pl 12 figs 1a, 1b. Savage, Ill Acad of Science, Tr, vol 14 (1922) p 205-6, pl 4, fig 1. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
piranha Posted November 11, 2013 Share Posted November 11, 2013 On 11/11/2013 at 9:12 AM, fishguy said: I am looking for copies of these two papers if anyone has a copy or knows where i could get a hard or digital copy. These have some posible matches to the fossils we are writing about. Meek & Worthen, Ill Geol Survey, vol 3 (1868) p 446-7, pl 12 figs 1a, 1b. Savage, Ill Acad of Science, Tr, vol 14 (1922) p 205-6, pl 4, fig 1. Here you go! Savage, T.E. (1921) New Species of Devonian Fossils from Western Illinois. Transactions of the Illinois State Academy of Science 14:197-206 PDF LINK Meek, F.B., & Worthen, A.H. (1868) Palaeontology. Geological Survey of Illinois 3:1-574 PDF LINK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishguy Posted November 11, 2013 Author Share Posted November 11, 2013 Thank You!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
New Members Ceph guy Posted November 11, 2013 New Members Share Posted November 11, 2013 Here is the paper on the Cephalopod fauna from Milwaukee. I feel they are contemporary faunas Thanks for posting that paper. I'm one of the folks working with fishguy to try & ID the ceph faunas we've been collecting in the Little Cedar Formation of Iowa. I didn't see the Formation name mentioned in that article on my first run through, but I'm guessing those described cephs are from the Lake Church Formation since they're from Milwaukee? If that's the case, those cephs are slightly older than our stuff. The Lake Church is Late Eifelian, one stage older than our Little Cedar Fm which is mid-Givetian Stage. The Lake Church is a lateral correlative to the Spillville Fm of northern Iowa - southern Minnesota I believe. If your stuff is indeed from the Lake Church, it would be very close in age to the fauna described by Flower in his 1938 "Cherry Valley Cephalopods" paper. Most of the pictures of your cephs look to me like Oncocerids of some kind or another - perhaps the Gomphoceras mentioned in that article. However it sure looks like you have a fragment or 2 of the Gyrocone species. They would appear to differ from our Gyrocones at least on the position of the siphuncle. The ones we have from the Little Cedar Fm always have ventral marginal siphuncles - the one in the article from the Milwaukee area has a siphuncle 1/3 of the way in from the ventral side if I read it correctly. So they're likely different species, but perhaps belong to the same genus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
New Members Ceph guy Posted November 19, 2013 New Members Share Posted November 19, 2013 (edited) Here is one I picked up in the Klien Quarry in Coralville, IA. I would love to put a name to it. I'm very much looking forward to the culmination of the work you guys have been doing. 3 Cephalopod.JPG Hi Caleb: We generally call those curved Oncocerids "Verticoceras sp." The caveat is that I would recommend keeping the name in quotation marks for the time being. This is one of the kinds we're hoping to drfinitively get identified as our project slowly moves forward. One thing that is more certain is the strata which yielded the nautiloid: that particular one comes from the Middle Devonian Cedar Valley Group, Little Cedar Formation, Upper Solon Member: Rhyssochonetes bellarugosis Zone (that interval is also listed in older literature as the Hexagonaria profunda zone). In the Johnson County, IA area, the uppermost portion of the Solon Member yields a fairly diverse nautiloid assemblage with at least 6 species present: ~3 taxa of Oncocerids ("Verticoceras sp", "Brevicoceras sp", and Acleistoceras sp.), an Orthocerid, a Rutocerid (probably Tetranodoceras sp. - they are extremely rare in the Upper Solon), and a Nautiliconic form (which may be Nephriticeras sp). The cephs occur sporadically in the bioherm communities at the top of the Solon. Fish Guy & myself were 2 of 4 co-authors on a paper a few years back which might be of use here: "Cephalopods of the Lower Cedar Valley Group: A General Overview", in the Oct 2010 Geological Society of Iowa Fall Field Trip Guidebook. Here is the link: ftp://ftp.igsb.uiowa.edu/igspubs/pdf/GSI-087.pdf Not sure how much that one will help, as we were mostly stuck listing shell forms or form genera names, but it'll give you some idea of what cephs you could find at Klein or Conklin Quarries. Edited November 19, 2013 by Ceph guy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
New Members Ceph guy Posted November 20, 2013 New Members Share Posted November 20, 2013 Here are a few from my local Middle Devonian dolomite in Milwaukee another another another another Any thoughts on genera for these ? Not sure if I can be much help here, but I'll give it a shot: 1- This one looks like it could either be a parenthesis shaped Oncocerid or perhaps a portion of a Gyrocone. Is there any hint of an inner whorl coming back in on the lower right portion of the rock? Also, are there any hints of nodes or spines along the shell? If it's a Gyrocone - there should be some nodes or spines. If that's the case, the likely genus would be Tetranodoceras - "Gyroceras" was supressed as it was a form genus. 2,3- Can't help too much here, although again this looks like a large Oncocerid. Can you see where the siphuncle is relative to shell walls and the curve of the shell? If it's an Oncocerid, the siphuncle should be closer to the ventral wall - on the outside of the curve. 4,5- These 2 look like different specimens of the same species. The body chambers would seem to be a dead giveaway that these are Oncocerids. They look to have fairly straight shells. I'd suggest looking up Ovoceras online and see if that might fit your specimens. 6- This one's hard to do without looking at the specimen in hand. It could be any one of a number of different kinds. Can you see the siphuncle on either end of the specimen? This one looks like it might be a chunk of a nautilicone, but could perhaps be a piece of gyrocone or another large Oncocerid too. If it's a nautilicone, I'd look up Nephriticeras and see if that might be what you have here. One reference that may help would be Rousseau H. Flower's 1936 article: "Cherry Valley Cephalopods" in the Bulletins of American Paleontology Vol 22, No. 76, pp 273-372. If you don't have that already, perhaps you can find a pdf of it online. The Cherry Valley Limestone in New York has recently been (re)classified as Late Eifelian, and if your specimens are coming from the Lake Church Formation, those formations are now thought to be time equivalents. So it's possible some of the genera & species Flower lists may apply to some of your WI specimens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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