Permian reef sponges, Guadalupe Mountains National Park

[verydeadthings]

Hi guys! I don't post here often, but I'm a PhD student in geology, currently working on tropical Paleogene palynology. I'm taking an unrelated class on the Permian Basin and I am working on identifying some of the fossils our class saw in Guadalupe Mountains National Park. I'm not a sponge expert, and I was hoping someone on the forum might be able to confirm or correct my identifications. I might make a follow-up post on the non-sponge fossils we saw on the trip.

 

A bit of background, these pictures were taken in the field with a metric scale, the scale has been cropped out of the pictures and a 5 mm scale bar is added. No fossil collecting was allowed on this trip so I won't be able to provide additional images. The fossils are from the Capitan Formation, which is Permian Period, Guadalupian Epoch, Capitanian Stage. The global stage name is actually named after the nearby El Capitan peak.

 

Amblysiphonella?

 

 

Archaeolithoporella?

[verydeadthings]

More...

 

 

Cystauletes?

 

 

Discosiphonella?

 

 

Girtyocoelia?

 

 

Guadalupia explanata?

[verydeadthings]

Yet more...

 

 

Guadalupia?

 

 

Heliospongia?

 

 

[verydeadthings]

More...

 

 

Lemonia cylindrica?

 

 

Lemonia?

[verydeadthings]

This last one should wrap it up...I don't have a good guess about the genus but it looks spongy to me

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Golly! 

How marvelous. 

@Spongy Joe

You'd love this! 

[piranha]

You are on the right track using this publication, I presume:

 

Rigby, J.K., Senowbari-Daryan, B., & Liu, H. 1998

Sponges of the Permian Upper Capitan Limestone Guadalupe Mountains, New Mexico and Texas.

Brigham Young University Geology Studies, 43:19-117   PDF LINK

 

If you search the references there are a bunch of papers on this topic from Rigby, Finks, etc.

[verydeadthings]

Thanks for the link to the publication, Piranha, I hadn't actually seen that one! I think it will be quite helpful.