Latest Scottish Carboniferous finds

[Fossildude19]

Awesome, Sam!

 

Those Jellyfish are incredible!

And to find those teeth as an afterthought! Very cool!

 

 

[RuMert]

Great finds! Swimming is getting dangerous because of so many jellyfish

[TqB]

What a superb set of finds! The sponge is beautiful but I'm not competent to ID it, beyond the fact that it looks like a hexactinellid! I suspect you'd need more microscopic spicule detail to be sure.

Here's the plate of Hyalostelia (two species) from Hinde's 1887 monograph, and a more modern set of photos from: 

Hyalostelia smithii (Young & Young) and the Sponge Genus Hyalostelia Zittel (Class Hexactinellida)
Author(s): R. E. H. Reid
Source: Journal of Paleontology, Vol. 42, No. 5 (Sep., 1968), pp. 1243-1248

 

(Upper left in the old plate is H. smithii from Cunningham Baidland.)

 

[Archie]

1 hour ago, Fossildude19 said:

Awesome, Sam!

 

Those Jellyfish are incredible!

And to find those teeth as an afterthought! Very cool!

 

 

Thanks Tim!  

 

They seem to crop up together a lot here in the east of Scotland, while strangely I don't think any examples of them being found together have occurred at the site where they were originally discovered, which is also in an outcrop of the Blackhall Limestone  

39 minutes ago, RuMert said:

Great finds! Swimming is getting dangerous because of so many jellyfish

Thank you! Yes I've been reading a few papers about this recently the conclusions seem to be that its due to changes in ocean chemistry and temperature as well as reductions of the populations of their predators. 

[Archie]

28 minutes ago, TqB said:

What a superb set of finds! The sponge is beautiful but I'm not competent to ID it, beyond the fact that it looks like a hexactinellid! I suspect you'd need more microscopic spicule detail to be sure.

Here's the plate of Hyalostelia (two species) from Hinde's 1887 monograph, and a more modern set of photos from: 

Hyalostelia smithii (Young & Young) and the Sponge Genus Hyalostelia Zittel (Class Hexactinellida)
Author(s): R. E. H. Reid
Source: Journal of Paleontology, Vol. 42, No. 5 (Sep., 1968), pp. 1243-1248

 

(Upper left in the old plate is H. smithii from Cunningham Baidland.)

 

Thanks Tarquin!

Thanks very much for your help that beautiful plate and the photos are very interesting to see! I'll just label it as a probable Hexactinellid Sponge for now. There doesn't seem to be any record of the sponge species found at this site in the very limited literature available on it, only a record of H. smithii at a nearby outcrop of the same bed.  

[Archie]

Had another hunt in the Blackhall Limestone on Saturday so have one more thing to post from it then I'll get onto some finds from the Coal Measures of the Fife Coal Field. Was out for a few hours but only found one keeper (and in literally the first rock I split!), this nice sized Petalodus acuminatus tooth. Sadly it split out badly with the enamel of the crown and basal ridge sticking to the counterpart but it looked like none of it had come away so decided to glue it back together and prep it out again, luckily it came out well!  

 

 

[Fossildude19]

Sweet!  

[Archie]

1 minute ago, Fossildude19 said:

Sweet!  

Thanks Tim!

Was well chuffed with this one  

[Archie]

I was off Sunday too so headed to my favorite Coal Measures site at a spoil heap with good vertebrate material that's Westphalian, Langsetian in age. I wasn't having much luck and was just explaining to a friend who was out hunting with me for the first time that it usually takes a good few trips to find anything exciting, a minute later I found the second rarest tooth at the site, Ctenoptychius apicalis  only found a few of these over the years and this ones in the best condition by far and also the largest at 12mm across.  When prepping it I discovered there was also a nice sized but slightly damaged Xenacanthus tooth next to it. My friend found a really nice horsetail and the impression of a huge Rhizodont tooth too.

 

The tooth as found,

 

After prep,

 

And with the Xenacanthus,

 

[FossilNerd]

I just went back and looked through this thread. Not sure how I missed it... Amazing stuff, and the latest posts did not disappoint! Awesome! 

[Archie]

My luck wasn't done for the day though as not long before we were due to leave I found what is definitely the rarest tooth at the site, Helodus (Pleuroplax) attheyii ,only ever found a couple of these before in years of hunting here! The last couple of visits to this site I found absolutely nothing so it was great to have some luck there again! This tooth is 9mm long.

 

Another nice tooth I got at this site a few weeks back was this Strepsodus sauroides tooth that's the biggest I've found so far at 22mm and has nice speckles of pyrite under the enamel. I wasn't able to get out hunting much last year but did have a few other finds I was really pleased with, I'll get some pics of these over the next few days.  

 

[Archie]

3 minutes ago, FossilNerd said:

I just went back and looked through this thread. Not sure how I missed it... Amazing stuff, and the latest posts did not disappoint! Awesome! 

Thank you!  

[PaleoNoel]

That Strepsodus tooth is awesome, love the pyrite bedazzlement!

[acsky119]

so nice trip

[Archie]

48 minutes ago, PaleoNoel said:

That Strepsodus tooth is awesome, love the pyrite bedazzlement!

 

46 minutes ago, acsky119 said:

so nice trip

Thanks guys!  

[deutscheben]

Quality finds and excellent prep work. Especially with your save of the split tooth! I continue to love the variety of teeth you are finding, that is one of the things I really enjoy about Carboniferous deposits like these.

[Monica]

Beautiful teeth and wonderful prepwork - congratulations!!!

[Archie]

16 hours ago, deutscheben said:

Quality finds and excellent prep work. Especially with your save of the split tooth! I continue to love the variety of teeth you are finding, that is one of the things I really enjoy about Carboniferous deposits like these.

Thank you! The diversity of teeth in the Blackhall Limestone especially is amazing, between its various outcrops across the Midland Valley over 30 species of Chondrichthyan teeth have turned up so far!

 

9 hours ago, Monica said:

Beautiful teeth and wonderful prepwork - congratulations!!!

 Thanks Monica!!  

 

[Fossildude19]

Well done on those last teeth, as usual Sam.   

 

[fossilselachian]

Very nice! That Saivodus is an incredible find. Congrats!!

[Archie]

20 hours ago, Fossildude19 said:

Well done on those last teeth, as usual Sam.   

 

Thanks again Tim!  

 

18 hours ago, fossilselachian said:

Very nice! That Saivodus is an incredible find. Congrats!!

Thank you! Its the only one I've ever found with no damage!

[Archie]

My latest tooth find from the Blackhall Limestone a couple of weekends ago, a posterior tooth plate of Poecilodus jonesi (McCoy, 1885), one of my favourite species and only the second posterior Ive ever found (and within a few feet of the last one). Its very similar to Deltoptychius but unlike this genus it has series of distinctive transverse ridges running across the central ridge. This is thought to be evidence of tooth plates like these having evolved from many individual teeth in a file fusing together. 9mm long. 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Very glad that I finally found this thread, not sure how I missed it.

Incredible finds, thank you so much for sharing, the teeth and especially the jellyfish are amazing and beautiful. 

I wish you health and happiness plus a lot more finds for 2020. 

[Archie]

4 minutes ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

Very glad that I finally found this thread, not sure how I missed it.

Incredible finds, thank you so much for sharing, the teeth and especially the jellyfish are amazing and beautiful. 

I wish you health and happiness plus a lot more finds for 2020. 

Thanks Adam!  

I really appreciate that and I'm glad you enjoyed it! 

All the best for 2020 I hope it has lots of adventures and happiness in store for you too!  

[Fossildude19]

2 hours ago, Archie said:

My latest tooth find from the Blackhall Limestone a couple of weekends ago, a posterior tooth plate of Poecilodus jonesi (McCoy, 1885), one of my favourite species and only the second posterior Ive ever found (and within a few feet of the last one). Its very similar to Deltoptychius but unlike this genus it has series of distinctive transverse ridges running across the central ridge. This is thought to be evidence of tooth plates like these having evolved from many individual teeth in a file fusing together. 9mm long. 

 

This is a fantastic tooth! 

Amazing information about the transverse ridges. I find this incredibly interesting. 

 

Hope you don't mind, I cropped and rotated your image to better show this feature.