St. Leon, Indiana Ordovician brachiopods

[Monica]

Hi all!

 

Now that I'm finally getting around to organizing my fossils into cabinets, I'm looking to get a bit more information on some of them.

 

As I'm currently finishing up the Ordovician shelves of my cabinets, I was hoping to get some help with identifying brachiopods from the St. Leon roadcut in Indiana that I acquired through winning some past auctions benefiting the forum. 

 

Photo #1: Mainly strophomenids, I think - does anyone have a more precise ID?

 

Photo #2: Dalmanellids perhaps?  Any specific IDs out there?

 

Photo #3: These are really tiny and adorable 

 

More to come...

 

[Monica]

Photo #4, two views of the same two brachiopods:

 

Thanks so much, everyone!!!

 

Monica

 

 

 

[Peat Burns]

Nice finds.  Here are my IDs. Let's see what others say

 

No. 1 is mostly Strophomena (S. planumbona?)

 

No. 2. Cincinnetina meeki

 

No. 3. Zygospira modesta

 

No. 4. Hiscobeccus capax

[Nimravis]

1 hour ago, Peat Burns said:

Nice finds.  Here are my IDs. Let's see what others say

 

No. 1 is mostly Strophomena (S. planumbona?)

 

No. 2. Cincinnetina meeki

 

No. 3. Zygospira modesta

 

No. 4. Hiscobeccus capax

I am glad that you answered Tony, I have fun collecting them but when it comes to ID’s on them I really blow it- I now just call them brachiopods- lol.

[Peat Burns]

1 hour ago, Nimravis said:

I am glad that you answered Tony, I have fun collecting them but when it comes to ID’s on them I really blow it- I now just call them brachiopods- lol.

I don't care what anyone says, brachiopods as a whole are not easy to identify unless one just memorizes the species of a given formation(s) or has a handy-dandy field guide to the brachs of a particular site.  They are so diverse and exhibit a lot of homeomorphy.  And the more taxa I learn across multiple time periods, the more they become jumbled into a tangled mess in my head.  Or maybe I've got halfheimer's disease...

[erose]

Two excellent internet resources to help you out:

 

http://www.drydredgers.org They have whole pages on identification.

 

http://strata.uga.edu/cincy/index.html. Includes many updated names such as Dalmanella becoming Cincinnetina...

 

But there are also a handful of really good books available you can use:

 

A Sea Without Fish: Life in the Ordovician Sea of the Cincinnati Region, David L. Meyer and Richard Arnold Davis with a chapter by Steven M. Holland. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana,2009, $44.95, hardcover, 346 pp.

 

Bulletin 70: Fossils of Ohio
A great tool to help identify fossils found throughout Ohio, designed for use by beginners to professionals. This is available both from the state survey as well as Amazon.

 

[Nimravis]

20 minutes ago, erose said:

Two excellent internet resources to help you out:

 

http://www.drydredgers.org They have whole pages on identification.

 

http://strata.uga.edu/cincy/index.html. Includes many updated names such as Dalmanella becoming Cincinnetina...

 

But there are also a handful of really good books available you can use:

 

A Sea Without Fish: Life in the Ordovician Sea of the Cincinnati Region, David L. Meyer and Richard Arnold Davis with a chapter by Steven M. Holland. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana,2009, $44.95, hardcover, 346 pp.

 

Bulletin 70: Fossils of Ohio
A great tool to help identify fossils found throughout Ohio, designed for use by beginners to professionals. This is available both from the state survey as well as Amazon.

 

I have the book and have been on those sites, they all look the same to me - lol.

[Mark Kmiecik]

3 hours ago, Nimravis said:

I have the book and have been on those sites, they all look the same to me - lol.

And then trilobites . . . and suddenly brachiopods are easy-peasy. 

[Monica]

Thanks for your help, everyone!

 

One last question - is it possible to identify the formation that these brachiopods came from?  I'd like to add that information to my labels, but if it isn't possible to do so, then no worries!

 

@Peat Burns

[Monica]

After doing a little research here on the forum and at http://www.ordovicianatlas.org/, I think I've narrowed down the possible formations to either the Liberty Formation or the Waynesville Formation for all of the brachiopods shown/listed above, so perhaps I'll include both formations on their labels.  I also have some cute little loose, enrolled Flexicalymene trilobites from the same roadcut, and individuals here on the forum have mentioned that these come from the Liberty Formation, too, so I think my conclusion is a safe bet (she says hopefully before she goes to write the labels )

 

Thanks once again!!!

[Peat Burns]

4 hours ago, Monica said:

Thanks for your help, everyone!

 

One last question - is it possible to identify the formation that these brachiopods came from?  I'd like to add that information to my labels, but if it isn't possible to do so, then no worries!

 

@Peat Burns

There is a wee bit of Arnheim exposed at that cut down low.  Cincinnetina occurs in both the Arnheim and Waynesville.  Based on probability and whether or not you went down slope and collected near the road, the Cincinnetina are probably Waynesville.

 

The Flexicalymene retrorsa minuens are Liberty Formation.  The other fossils are best recorded as Liberty or Waynesville.

[erose]

8 hours ago, Monica said:

Thanks for your help, everyone!

 

One last question - is it possible to identify the formation that these brachiopods came from?  I'd like to add that information to my labels, but if it isn't possible to do so, then no worries!

 

@Peat Burns

As mentioned there are a number of formations exposed. At the base of the cut is the top of the Arnheim, then Waynesville, Liberty, Whitewater and Saluda. Pretty much the entire Richmond "Group".  All of those names are the typically used old Cincinnatian names. In Indiana much of this is just called the Dillsboro Formation. Even in Ohio many of those formations are now considered members of much bigger formations such as the Grant Lake.  Kinda makes your head spin sometimes.  If you were finding the trilobites in those soft shales near the middle you were most likely in the "Liberty", lower down you get into the "Waynesville", higher up as the stuff gets more rubbly it's upper Liberty and into the Whitewater. Near the top where the colonial corals show up it would be the "Whitewater & Saluda".  

 

As you collect more and more try and keep good notes and label as best you can what layers you were in. Use your smart phone to take photos and if it has a good GPS app notate the coordinates and elevation. Scientifically fossils are only as valuable as the location information.