Geode, crinoid(?) and a mess

[MrNLovesRocks]

Hello everyone! 

 

Mr. N here, I teach elementary special education and my students and I found a couple things from the crushed rock from the retaining wall. 

 

Item 1: limestone (?) with what I believe is a crinoid calyx exposed partially and scattered crinoid arm segments. Not confident on this one I'm super new to this. (Calyx most visible in last image, what I think are tentacle segments are most visible in the penultimate). Please excuse the green lichen that I haven't cleaned off, I'm afraid of I clean it I will not be able to keep from trying to dig that calyx or whatever out immediately .

 

 

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Next is a geode or inclusion of some kind that was buried in fill dirt. We cracked it open together and found crystal formations and varied rock. I am tentatively identifying the brown as some kind of calcite crystal as it is reactive with vinegar and in the general hardness range of calcite. However I don't know how to tell fossil from rock and it's just weird enough I wanted extra eyes. This is also from Crawford county. 3rd and 5th images in this set show what might be a very small fossil tooth or edge of a shell? It's at the 8.5cm mark in image 3 and 5.

 

 

[Fossildude19]

Your first item has a rugose coral, and a bryozoan on it.

 

 

 

Your second item looks like some sort of concretion, or septarian nodule, to me.

[MrNLovesRocks]

Well I'm glad I didn't try to dig it out thinking it was a calyx when it's not gonna be that shape at all...

 

For a concretion like that, am I looking at geological processes alone forming the interior as well?

[Mark Kmiecik]

15 hours ago, MrNLovesRocks said:

For a concretion like that, am I looking at geological processes alone forming the interior as well?

 

Yes -- some of them are quite beautiful. Many, when cut in half and polished become spectacular specimens.