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What Is This


Ramo

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My wife found this in the Bluehill shale of central Kansas. I have showed it to a lot of people, and nobody can ID it. Any guesses?

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For one species to mourn the death of another is a new thing under the sun.
-Aldo Leopold
 

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Sorry about the title of this post, I guess it should have said "unknown cretaceous marine fossil", instead of "What is this".

For one species to mourn the death of another is a new thing under the sun.
-Aldo Leopold
 

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it wouldn't be some eroded remains of some colonial coral ?

I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things; by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose — which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn't frighten me. ~ Richard Feynman

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I`t resembles to the trace fossil known as Palaeodictyon (Meneghini), Known from the Ordovicic to the Tertiary.The animal that did it is still unknown (possibly a worm).

It looks as if the matrix of it has eroded away. I hope this can help you. post-62-1205399755.gif

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Guest N.AL.hunter

OK I know this is not correct, but it "looks like" some mud that has fallen of the bottom of my work boots!!

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Looks like a chunk of eroded croc scute...

I also think croc

Croc..not sure if scute or some of the honeycomed bits of the the skull

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These are scutes. (my collection) They are common finds in our Cretaceous deposits Often the bottoms are eroded and this leaves an open honeycomb effect. Thes second photo (not from my collection) is from the top of a skull. The bone often erodes leaving segments as in bowkills specimen. We frequently find exterior skull bits.

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Guest N.AL.hunter

And I forgot, the other item appears to be an Energizer AA battery, but I can't be sure without the bunny.

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These are scutes. (my collection) They are common finds in our Cretaceous deposits Often the bottoms are eroded and this leaves an open honeycomb effect. Thes second photo (not from my collection) is from the top of a skull. The bone often erodes leaving segments as in bowkills specimen. We frequently find exterior skull bits.

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If that's croc scute from Kansas, that is a very, very rare find!!!!

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X-fish, The edges are 6 sided. I showed it to Mike Everhart, and he didn't know what it was. Where it was found there are lots of what the locals call "Thunderbird eggs" (Serpentine concretions). Here is a side photo that shows that it is crystaline inside. It could be part of a concretion, but I have never seen anything like it before. (I wet it to get the crystals to show up better)

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For one species to mourn the death of another is a new thing under the sun.
-Aldo Leopold
 

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If that's croc scute from Kansas, that is a very, very rare find!!!!

I have research papers with croc finds in Kansas. There's papers on the Cretaceous croc Dakotasuchus (spelling?) and others.

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X-fish, The edges are 6 sided. I showed it to Mike Everhart, and he didn't know what it was. Where it was found there are lots of what the locals call "Thunderbird eggs" (Serpentine concretions). Here is a side photo that shows that it is crystaline inside. It could be part of a concretion, but I have never seen anything like it before. (I wet it to get the crystals to show up better)

OK, I don't have a clue then....sorry :(

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  • 1 month later...

I don't claim to be an expert, but that looks suspiciously like a Petoskey Stone (Hexagonaria Percarinata from the Devonian period about 350 million years ago), a fossilized colony coral found most commonly in the Northwestern part of Michigan, but also elsewhere around the Great Lakes. I've seen some very porous stones that looked something like that. Hope this helps. See the attached image. Or possibly Favosites, also colony coral. Here are a couple of links to photos http://www.paleoportal.org/index.php?globa..._section=search

http://www.lakeneosho.org/Miss41.html

I found mention that Favosites had been found in Johnson County, Kansas.

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Carpe Diem, Carpe Somnium

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