Jayson Kowinsky
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Hello,
Ya, it looks like coral pieces in a limestone matrix. All the little circles look like coral polyps.
The “next adventure” wasn’t fossil related 🙁 … I went to the South Pacific Humback Whale calving grounds in Vava’u for a few weeks (just returned a few days ago).
Although they are not prehistoric, being with “living” cetaceans in the wild is pretty cool. You can easily imagine what the Miocene and Pliocene seas must have looks like with the vast cetacean diversity back then. Here’s a couple pics for the fun of it.
I’ll be heading to an East Coast Dinosaur site in a month. That will be the next fossil hunting trip, If I find anything, I’ll post some fossils.
@lcone, @egardner – Here are a few more pictures… We also visited the Mace Brown museum. Bobby and Sarah recently finished prepping the “Cone Whale” and put it on display. It’s the most complete baleen whale ever collected from the PCS Mine in Aurora, NC. Also, it was collected by Lee Cone!!!
And finally, this is completely unrelated to anything… but I found a cool little coffee house by the Mace Brown museum, called “Tricera.” It has a Triceratops fossil on display and tons of little triceratops dinos to play with!
@lcone, @egardner – Hello, Sorry for the late reply… I just got back! Here are some of the pictures of the fossil dive!
I also have a video of the trip, it’s on my page:
http://www.fossilguy.com/trips/blackwater-dive-2017/index.htm
You should check out the end, with Lee vs the Alligator! I wish I would have filmed his facial expression!
Thanks Lee for this trip!
Just uploaded mine!
Hello, @vperez, @zacharias-allison
Here is a link to the page Victor is referring to. It has most of the common teeth you can find at Aurora. This should help you I.D. almost all of your shark finds from Aurora.
http://www.fossilguy.com/sites/l_creek/lcrk_col_shark.htm
Later,
Jayson
Hello,
I don’t think it’s a tooth. The coquina layer in the Pungo River formation at Aurora is cemented together by limestone full of those tiny phosphate grains that I see in your sample.
It looks like a piece of coquina matrix from the Pungo River that just happens to have a tooth shape.
Later!
Hey Lisa,
PennDOT blew up most of the marine zone while widening the cut a while back. There are occasionally chunks of marine zone that have fallen that people can search, but chunks of the plant layer are much more common to find.
I was there about a month ago to make sure the site was not blown up…again. I only spent about 15 or so minutes there, and didn’t see any marine chunks, but there were quite a few giant slabs of Mahoning shale to look through. The plant slab in the picture was laying out in the open, so everyone is at least guaranteed plant fossils.
The little path to the cut is always beaten down with footprints, and there are always little piles of worked through shale, so there are others that go there! Maybe someone else who visits the site will also post here.
@llundgren, @bmacfadden, @vperez, @cathy-young, @lmccall, @cferrara, @lcone, @dkrisher, @egardner,
I’m still going to say it’s a Bryozoan colony encrusting the bottom part of your spiriferid fossils.
No clue! It looks tiny. I would go with Eleanors suggestion as a poorly preserved piece of Brachiopod. Gastropods are usually smoother, I’d go with Brachiopod, but same idea.
Hello,
This is a cluster of poorly preserved spiriferid brachiopods. They are found in clusters on occasion.
As to what type (genus) they are, I have no clue. There are lots of types and these ones are too worn to see any of the genus specific traits.
I attached a picture tracing them out on your image, and also an image of a similar cluster of better preserved ones from a different local.
The other side of it, it looks like that could be a piece of brachiopod impression (the ridges area). The rest of it may have a bryozoan colony growing on it, those tiny little bumpy thingys (to be technical).
Later,
@hunter-thurmond – No, the Needmore formation is not equivalent to the Mahantango. However, they are very similar.
They USED to be part of the same group. Now, the Mahantango is part of the Hamilton group, while the Needmore shale is part of the Onondaga Group.
Looking at the stratigraphy, the Magantango is on the top, the Marcellus shale is in the middle, and the Needmore is below the Marcellus. (I attached a picture of the stratigraphy.)
The Magantango is a few million years younger than the Needmore. Also, the depositional environment was a little bit different, as the Needmore is composed of soft oily gray calcareous shale, while the Magantango is composed of siltstones and sandstones.
With that said, they are of similar age, and they do have similar fossils.
Hey, I just saw that a member of the Needmore formation in West Virginia and Pennsylvania is the direct equivalent of the Onondaga Limestone in NY. I wonder if your fossil came from that, or a layer just above or below the limestone?
About your size. The one I attached as the picture is the biggest one I’ve found. Most of them are very small, like yours.
Later,
I agree with @rnarducci . That chunk is similar to some stuff that you can find in Virginia. I don’t see any bone in it. Lots of shells, and that big eroded thing in the middle with the radial striations looks like coral to me. In Virginia, bone chunks and shark teeth can be found in that hard “greensand” rock, so I would say keep looking!
Hello,
Ya, it’s the very top of a solitary coral. I have seen lots of those in the Needmore formation in Virginia. Although it’s a different formation and time period, I’m sure they can be found in other formations. I attached a picture from the “Lost River” site on my webpage. This one, the very tip was visible like yours, and I extracted the rest of it to see what it was.
I have no clue about the genus, I can’t seem to find much info on them in the literature.
Later!
Jayson
Woops! I just wrote that reply and just saw that Eleanor (@egardner) said basically the same thing! I think we’ve reached a consensus!
Hello,
You have come across some very oil rich shale. Unfortunately, I don’t see anything that looks fossil to me.
What I see is that oil rich shale has allot of mineral precipitation going on, causing the different patterns and colors, some of which you can rub off (thin layers of precipitation).
The white areas that seem to branch again look like mineral precipitation lines that follow weak spots and microscopic cracks in the shale. The oilyness (if that’s a word) probably helps spread it. This is similar to how dendritic mineral growth occurs. The dendritic growth looks like little trees and stuff forming on the rock. Yours is not quite the same, as it has more of the branching that you see. If you google “dendritic mineral growth” you can see how this type of precipitation occurs.
Later!
Jayson
Hello,
It’s definitely from the Magantango! It has the classic orange fossil staining from the breakdown of the pyrite rich sediments. With my experience in the Mahantanho, i’m going to say it may be one of two things:
- What Eleanor (@egardner ) says, part of a poorly preserved brachiopod. It is too poorly preserved to tell the genus or make a positive I.D.
- A piece of pygidium from a small Dipleura. I am saying this, because of the tiny bumps on it. Some of the poorly preserved Dipleura pieces (which can be abundant in certain layers) often have those little bumps on them.
I have a page on the Mahantango:
http://www.fossilguy.com/sites/mahantango/
However, I have yet to scan and post pictures of the fossils (including Dilpleura) found there.
Hope that helps!
Jayson
@llundgren – Yes, it’s going to be about avocational paleontology websites. I’m looking into website analytics on http://www.fossilguy.com and exploring how visitors use available resources on the website. By understanding visitor data trends, such as user interest, scientific content, and readability, paleontology-related websites can be tailored to meet these needs and better engage users.
Everyones abstracts look great. I can’t wait for the full day FOSSIL session!
Hello, @asa-kaplan @bmacfadden
This may be a bit late, but the type of preservation and color look a lot like fossils from the Mahantango Formation that pops up throughout central Pennsylvania… If he was wondering what formation they may have come from.
