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Jason Weyland posted a new specimen in the group What is it? from the myFOSSIL app 3 years, 1 month ago
3 years, 1 month ago3 years, 1 month agoJason Weyland has contributed specimen mFeM 97777 to myFOSSIL!
Jason Weyland posted a new specimen in the group What is it? from the myFOSSIL app 3 years, 1 month ago
Jason Weyland has contributed specimen mFeM 97777 to myFOSSIL!
Do you know the age of the rocks you found this in? It has some strong resemblance to some of the earliest vascular land plants, which are fairly rare and valuable fossils. I’m not certain of this though, @matthew-gramling may be able to help too. If you could post more pictures with objects for scale like a ruler/tape measure/coin ect.
Greetings @jason-wayland ! Do you have any information on where your specimen was collected? It can help provide an ID.
Thanks for tagging me @a-trilobite ! Seems we had the same thought at the same time.
@jason-weyland
@mackenzie-smith would be a better person to consult.
@a-trilobite @matthew-gramling I added some more photos and location information for you. Curious to know more about it!
@jason-weyland Nice to meet another NW GA fossil collector like myself! If you collected this in the immediate environs around Chickamauga then there is a good chance this is not a plant fossil after all. Most of the strata around Chickamauga is from the Ordivician, so it’s possibly a bryozoan. I’ll do some more research to see if I can pin down what this is.
The strata around Chickamauga is Knox Group, Newala Limestone, and Chickamauga Group.
@matthew-gramling it looks like it was in the Fort Payne Chert formation at the base of Pigeon Mountain. You definitely know more than me, but I’m not quite convinced this one is a bryozoan.
Looks like mississippian. Maybe a lepidodendron?
@jason-weyland There is a possibility it’s a Mississippian marine plant, which have been found in similar strata like the Floyd Shale.
Sphenopteris is our guess for what this one is now.
@matthew-gramling @jason-weyland It’s anyone’s guess. It’s not Sphenopteris though, that is fern-ier. It will largely come down to the age of the rock. There does seem to be a lot of branching for an early land plant although we don’t know a lot about the gametophyte generation of many early plants. Algae go beyond my expertise and I don’t know of anyone in the States that work on them. I can’t think of many plants from the Carboniferous or earlier that would have foliage like that which is why if it is a plant it is more likely branching axes like Psilotum although w/o sporangia/synangium it’s really hard to say. Roots could be a possibility though if that is the case I don’t think you will have much taxonomic resolution.
Thank you @mackenzie-smith ! According to jason, this specimen was collected in the Mississippian Fort Payne Formation. I have looked for literature on flora from that Formation, but found nothing.