Periodic Paleo Posting - The Pie Cabinet

[bockryan]

7 hours ago, Ludwigia said:

Have you considered the possibility that this might be a large Tentaculites? Just a thought and I'm not at all certain, since they are usually much smaller and the spaces between the spirals are mostly wider.

 

I haven't actually! I think it's a bit too big, I see now the scale is somewhat obscured but it's about 10-12 centimeters long. I will check the guide I used to see if tentaculites are reported from the site. Interesting idea

[bockryan]

Another first phylum for the thread: the bryozoans (the wonderfully named "moss animals"). This one comes from the Mississippian Bluefield Formation, exposed near the town of Glen Lyn, Virginia. The famous corkscrew Archimedes appears here, but I don't think this specimen is a fragment of one of those - I have it listed as Fenestellidae, the family that includes Archimedes and lots of other "lacy" forms. 

 

 

My label for this one is therefore:

Fenestellidae

Glen Lyn, VA

Bluefield Formation

Carboniferous (Middle Mississippian)

 

Quite a nice spot to collect fossils in the spring, lots of climbing and searching for pockets of fossils that have eroded out of the hillside.

 

 

[bockryan]

Next up is another cephalopod, this time Metacoceras sp. from the Pennsylvanian Bush Creek Limestone exposed in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. These can be found along with gastropods, bivalves, brachiopods, and other marine fossils - the Bush Creek is very fossiliferous. The "Fossils of Park Township" website has a useful catalogue feature that includes some really nice images of a variety of specimens (thank you @cngodles!). There are a lot of species within Metacoceras so I have left it as sp. for now, not sure if I have enough here to be diagnostic to a species. 

 

 

 

 

My label for this one is:

Metacoceras sp.

Johnstown, PA    

Glenshaw Formation, Bush Creek Marine Zone    

Carboniferous (Late Pennsylvanian)

[bockryan]

This will be the first purchased fossil within this thread - and it's actually the newest one, arriving only yesterday. It is a tooth plate from a Ceratodus lungfish, found near Taouz, Morocco in the Late Cretaceous Kem Kem Group. It is also, I believe, the smallest fossil in the display cabinet. I LOVE lungfish, I think they are the absolute coolest and I'm glad we still have a few of them doing their thing in the modern day. This must have been a pretty big lungfish, swimming around with Spinosaurus and friends back in the Cretaceous. 

 

 

 

 

The label for this one is:

Ceratodus sp.

Taouz, Morocco

Kem Kem Group

Late Cretaceous

 

Some paleoart of these guys that I enjoyed, as well as some of my modern lungfish shots from the National Aquarium in Baltimore, MD and the PRI in NY:

 

 

 

 

That last one by Jason Abdale goes along with a really excellent blog post on the genus that also includes an old figure that shows how these tooth plates would have been arranged in the mouth:

 

 

My photos:

 

 

[Yoda]

@bockryan

Really nice display.

Especially the plant material 

 

I used to have a 2 ft South American Lungfish.

Really cool fish to keep. 

[Bringing Fossils to Life]

@bockryan Nice cephalopod! I'm sorry to say that the ID poster I made is a little outdated now; it lacks Striacoceras typum and is a little too confident in some areas; in addition, all the Orthoceratoids have Aptychopsis when Michelinoceras is the only cephalopod that may have had one, and they are reconstructed as opercula (Mironkeno 2021 seems to have the best argument as yet concerning its placement, even if it is slightly phylogenetically incorrect). I think you likely have either Spyroceras or Striacoceras, because of the septal spacing, but Michelinoceras is possible. I do not think you have Bactrites because in my experience they are often crushed and because they have wider septal spacing. Tentaculites do not have the scale of septa that I see, and the weathering of the chambers reveals septa that can only be found in cephalopods. The size is a good indicator, too.

[bockryan]

8 hours ago, Yoda said:

@bockryan

Really nice display.

Especially the plant material 

 

I used to have a 2 ft South American Lungfish.

Really cool fish to keep. 

 

Thanks Yoda  Have really enjoyed your collection thread as well. I strongly considered getting a lungfish and probably will someday, but I have two geckos and thought that the amount of time/care with adding a fish would probably overstretch me. So for now, I just check out the ones at the aquarium! The Baltimore one has a crazy exhibit that mimics an Australian stream/river with lots of interesting species.

 

4 hours ago, Bringing Fossils to Life said:

@bockryan Nice cephalopod! I'm sorry to say that the ID poster I made is a little outdated now; it lacks Striacoceras typum and is a little too confident in some areas; in addition, all the Orthoceratoids have Aptychopsis when Michelinoceras is the only cephalopod that may have had one, and they are reconstructed as opercula (Mironkeno 2021 seems to have the best argument as yet concerning its placement, even if it is slightly phylogenetically incorrect). I think you likely have either Spyroceras or Striacoceras, because of the septal spacing, but Michelinoceras is possible. I do not think you have Bactrites because in my experience they are often crushed and because they have wider septal spacing. Tentaculites do not have the scale of septa that I see, and the weathering of the chambers reveals septa that can only be found in cephalopods. The size is a good indicator, too.

 

Thank you! This is helpful, I will keep looking. There are a few Seven Stars fossils coming up so those should be of interest!

 

On to the next fossil - we will take our first trip to the Paleocene with Ostrea alepidota from the Aquia Formation, exposed at the former Purse State Park, now the Nanjemoy WMA in Maryland. Mostly known for the truly ridiculous amount of shark teeth that can be found there, Purse does have a few mollusks although the diversity is pretty low. 

 

 

 

My label for this one is:

Ostrea alepidota

Nanjemoy Wildlife Management Area (Purse/Douglas Point), MD

Aquia Formation

Paleocene

 

And some site pictures from the beach:

 

 

 

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 04:02 PM by bockryan

[bockryan]

Last one for today - the first (but certainly not the last) appearance of trilobites in the thread. We'll begin with the biggest one, even if it's just the cephalon. This is Dipleura dekayi from the Middle Devonian Mahantango Formation, exposed in a quarry in Seven Stars, Pennsylvania. This one took a bit of a beating, losing the tip of his "nose" and one of his eyes, but I still am a big fan of all the surface detail, the color, and just the overall look of these guys. Wish there was more art out there imagining what they would have looked like in life.

 

The Fossil Forum collections has a lovely image gallery of what the full creature looked like. Hopefully future trips will produce a complete specimen!

 

 

 

 

My label is:

Dipleura dekayi

Seven Stars, PA

Mahantango Formation

Middle Devonian

Edited Wednesday at 06:34 PM by bockryan

[bockryan]

OK maybe one more for today! It's more fun writing about fossils than working, after all. Next up is another purchased fossil. This is from another of my favorite extinct animals: the giant "elephant birds" from Madagascar. While the actual bones of these animals are probably quite rare and expensive, fragments of their eggs are much more common and attainable. We only just missed out, sadly, on seeing these magnificent animals - they are estimated to have died out only about a thousand years ago. At least we still have the Kiwi, which is apparently the closest living relative to the elephant birds.

 

 

 

 

 

My (not very detailed, unfortunately) label for this one is:

Aepyornis sp. (Eggshell Fragment)    

Unknown location, Madagascar    

Unknown Formation    

Pleistocene
 

A size comparison of various bird eggs (with the Elephant Bird on the far left) and some paleoart of these cool animals:

 

 

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 08:13 PM by bockryan

[bockryan]

Likely to be only one for today, as I'm going to start the long drive to Chicago for the ESCONI field trip that will hopefully produce some lovely new plant fossils for the cabinet. It is another purchase, and probably one of the more common fossils to own in the world - the iconic ammonite Perisphinctes from Late Jurassic rocks in Tulear Province, Madagascar. Many of these get polished, but I *much* prefer them as-is (for basically everything except for things like stromatolites where the polishing reveals the actual structure). I don't get a lot of ammonites around me, so if there are any experts out there who could hazard a guess at the species for this one, I would appreciate it. For now, it remains as Perisphinctes sp. on my spreadsheet.  

 

 

The label for this one is:

Perisphinctes sp.

Tulear Province, Madagascar

Unknown Formation

Late Jurassic