Sometimes You Have To Whack It !!

[Nimravis]

Today was a good day for opening concretions from Pit 4 (Shadow Lakes), even though nothing real special was found, almost every concretion that I opened had some type of fossil in it, this allowed me to add a bunch of material to my ESCONI Trip buckets. I also opened a couple of concretions from the area that is located across the street from Shadow Lakes, I found some odd inside a large flat concretion and I have never seen something like it before. I am not positive that it is anything, but the concretion opened with a slight tap and there is "relief" running throughout. If anyone has an idea on what it is, if anything, please respond.

 

Here are some of my finds from Shadow Lakes-

 

Neuropteris-

 

 

Cyclopteris-

 

 

 

Pecopteris-

 

 

I also opened a couple larger concretions that were loaded with Pecopteris, here are a couple examples.

 

 

 

Lycopod Leaf portion-

 

 

Bark-

 

 

 

Here is something odd that was inside this concretion and I have never seen this type of inclusion, I believe that the fossil portion is coprolite, though I do not recognize the white pieces.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nimravis]

Here are the items that I found from the area that I designate as "Across From Pit 4". I have been putting more and more perfect concretions off to the side to freeze, the majority of these concretions are the ones from this area. I have had some really nice from this location, so I want to see how they pop in the Winter.

 

One thing with these concretions is that they seem to be harder that the concretions from Shadow Lakes. They also have a lighter color, a higher pitch sound when struck with a hammer and if you bang two pieces of broken concretions together, it sounds like glass striking. 

 

I don't know if I mentioned it before, but sometimes when I hit a concretion and a portion breaks off, the concretion becomes very hot to the touch where it broke off, I believe that this might be due to the make up of the ironstone.

 

Here is a worm that did not break open very nicely. 

 

 

 

This concretion broke with one quick strike and revealed a beautiful piece of bark.

 

 

 

This piece also opened easily- last time I found something similar to this I thought it was Flora and someone ID'd correctly as an Insect wing. This piece I really think is a piece of flora, maybe bark.

 

 

 

Here are a couple concretions that I am putting off to the side to freeze.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nimravis]

Now here is the piece from "Across From Pit 4" that I have never come across before. It is large and has relief and is just odd looking, I do not know if it is a fossil or not, so any ideas would be appreciated.  @fiddlehead , @RCFossils , @fossilized6s , @Rob Russell , @Peat Burns

 

[Wrangellian]

Veddy eenteresting....  It looks sinuous (wormlike), but with the high relief as you point out. But I know you didn't ask me, I'm not the expert... Will be interesting to see what the others say.

[Nimravis]

3 minutes ago, Wrangellian said:

Veddy eenteresting....  It looks sinuous (wormlike), but with the high relief as you point out. But I know you didn't ask me, I'm not the expert... Will be interesting to see what the others say.

I’m not an expert either and I really have no clue, hopefully it is something. It did crack very nicely and that made me happy.

[Wrangellian]

Would it have opened that easily if it were nothing?

[jdp]

3 hours ago, Nimravis said:

Now here is the piece fro "Across From Pit 4" that I have never come across before. It is large and has relief and is just odd looking, I do not know if it is a fossil or not, so any ideas would be appreciated.  @fiddlehead , @RCFossils , @fossilized6s , @Rob Russell , @Peat Burns

 

I wonder if this might be a somewhat decayed Tullimonstrum

[Nimravis]

3 hours ago, jdp said:

wonder if this might be a somewhat decayed Tullimonstrum

At this location I have never found any sign of a Tully (Essex Fauna), nor do I know of anyone who has, but I believe that at or near this area was the place where the border of Braidwood and Essex Biota was located, so it could be possible or that it could be some type of jellyfish that I am not recognizing.

[deutscheben]

That is a puzzling one! The texture reminds me of Essexella, but the shape is completely different. 

[Nimravis]

1 hour ago, deutscheben said:

That is a puzzling one! The texture reminds me of Essexella, but the shape is completely different. 

I agree, it is Jellyfish-ish to me, I have never seen anything like it before.

[RCFossils]

Neat piece!

i am not quite sure what to make of it.

I do know that there is an area of Pit 4 (Shadow Lakes) that does preserve Essex Fauna fossils including Essexella and Tullies. I do not recognize any structure in your specimen that would lead me to believe that is what this is but it is possible.

The preservation to me does not look like any soft bodied animal that I have seen.

Possibly a trace fossil.

[Nimravis]

27 minutes ago, RCFossils said:

Neat piece!

i am not quite sure what to make of it.

I do know that there is an area of Pit 4 (Shadow Lakes) that does preserve Essex Fauna fossils including Essexella and Tullies. I do not recognize any structure in your specimen that would lead me to believe that is what this is but it is possible.

The preservation to me does not look like any soft bodied animal that I have seen.

Possibly a trace fossil.

I agree- I have never found a Tully there and recently found an Essexella  in a bucket from there, but I believe it happened to fall into it at home. This thing is really weird and it is not flat and has nice relief, I believe one of the reasons it opened with a couple little taps. To be honest, I was expecting it to be void of anything, as those flat concretions are when I open them. Thanks for your insight.

[Peat Burns]

Not sure, Ralph @Nimravisalthough this area looks interesting and may be a clue.  Is this a biological pattern or a fracture pattern?

 

[Innocentx]

The white rods in that other one, could they be insect poop or possibly a type of maggot? Hmm. 

[Nimravis]

@Peat Burns Tony I think it is just the way the concretion split. Here are better views of part and counterpart.

 

[Nimravis]

6 minutes ago, Innocentx said:

The white rods in that other one, could they be insect poop or possibly a type of maggot? Hmm. 

Not sure, but I have never seen anything like that before. Also, I have stated that I have not found a Jellyfish fish at this site before, but today I opened more concretions from this same bucket, many that I put off to the side to freeze, but one large concretion split with a little tap and I cans swear it is a Jellyfish. I will post that shortly.

[Nimravis]

With the sun going down fast today, I only had about 20 minutes to whack open some concretions. I continued with the bucket that I was working on yesterday that I collected from the area I call "Across From Pit 4". This bucket contains a lot of concretions that I am going to save to Freeze over the winter.

 

I cracked open some of these-

 

 

And ended up placing theses back for the purpose of freezing later.

 

 

As I stated yesterday the color outside and inside along with make up of these concretions seem to be different from the concretions that I have from Shadow Lakes (Pit 4), which is located on the other side of Novy Road, I really have no idea why.

 

The inside color of these concretions are very dark and you have no problem dressing a deer with and of these pieces, they are as sharp as a knife.

 

 

I stated yesterday that I have never found a Jellyfish at this location or at Shadow Lakes, with the exception of an Essexella asherae half that I recently found in one of my buckets that I believe fell in while at home. But today I opened a very large concretion, and if I found this at Pitt 11 or Braceville, I would have no problem saying that it is an Essexella, but from this location I kind of have a problem with that. So now two days in a row I find something, collected at the same time that has possible appearances of Jellyfish.

 

Here is the one from today- @RCFossils look at this one.

 

 

Since I did not have a long time to open concretions, I am going to post all of my other finds from today.

 

Pecopteris-

 

 

Annularia-

 

 

 

The very long and skinny concretion contained a Lycopod Leaf- unfortunately it did not open the way that I would have liked.

 

 

I believe that this is a Cordaites leaf.

 

 

Here is a concretion that has miscellaneous plant material in it including Taeniophyllum latifolium, the contrast of colors is nice.

 

 

Here is one other example of Taeniophyllum latifolium.

 

 

Here are a couple Myalinella meeki Bivalves.

 

 

Here is a worm that is not in the greatest state of preservation.

 

 

As opened-

 

 

Cleaned up a bit with water-

 

 

 

@GeschWhat Lori, here are a couple pieces that opened today, take a look and let me know if you want them.

 

 

 

[Nimravis]

I am having less and less time to open concretions after work and with the time change coming soon, I will only have time to open concretions during the day time hours on my off days.

 

I did a count on my remaining buckets and I am down to 55 buckets, 3 1/2  of these 5 gallon buckets are loaded with "perfect looking" concretions that I will Freeze / Thaw. On another note, I have gone through about 10 freeze / thaw sessions with about 25 concretions and nothing has cracked open at this point.

 

I finished going through the bucket that I started a couple days ago and here are a couple finds from today.

 

My favorite find of the day, a very pretty Annularia, that is two days in row- I love Annularia.

 

 

Here is another Annularia leaf whorl.

 

 

Here are a couple little Neuropteris leaves.

 

 

 

Here are a couple Pecopteris-

 

 

 

Bark-

 

 

Lycopod Leaf-

 

 

Myalinella meeki Bivalve-

 

 

Lastly, here is the third day in a row that this bucket revealed an item that looks similar to a Jellyfish, these are the only times that I have found these type of (Fossils?) from the area that call "Across From Pit 4".

 

 

 

[Wrangellian]

That worm that you cleaned off is not preserved well?

[Innocentx]

Nice bark!

 

[Nimravis]

33 minutes ago, Wrangellian said:

That worm that you cleaned off is not preserved well?

Sorry, but not to me- but seeing that it is soft bodied, you have to say that it is great- 

[Nimravis]

33 minutes ago, Innocentx said:

Nice bark!

 

I always love bark and I always take a close look to see if there is any fauna on the pieces.

[Nimravis]

Here is an aerial pic that I purchased today to show the area of Pit 4 and also what would become (Shadow Lakes) and the area that I call "Across From Pit 4". I always used the designation AFP4 so I knew that the concretions were found outside of Shadow Lakes, but it is still Pit 4..

 

The pic below is a "1939" aerial shot of those areas, i picked this view because it encompasses both areas. 

 

[Nimravis]

The Green area is Shadow Lakes (Pit 4) and the Blue area was my collecting area called Across From Pit 4. The Red arrows indicate what must have been Shaft Mines across the Pit 4.

 

 

 

Here is a current aerial shot.

 

 

 

[Nimravis]

Here is a modified map from Circular 480 from the Illinois State Geological Survey that shows the pit by number and how the Essex and Braidwood Biota were distributed.