Can Someone Id This For Me?

[skippy804]

Hello, I found this in the early 80's while I was walking beside some railroad tracks and I have been wondering what it was ever since. I think it is part of a horn. I appreciate your help.

[Gatorman]

well i have no clue but maybe one of the other members knows something.

[MOROPUS]

I`t looks for me very similar, to a Paleozoic straight Nautiloid (Michelinoceras?).Nevertheless, a real smart fossil.Perhaps some other forum friends could tell us the real name, due to the good preservation of it. Good catch!

[MOROPUS]

Hello, I found this in the early 80's while I was walking beside some railroad tracks and I have been wondering what it was ever since. I think it is part of a horn. I appreciate your help.

By the way, could you shrink the pictures a bit? they are enourmous!....

[Uncle Siphuncle]

Guys

We are looking at a Paleozoic nautiloid as Moropus mentioned. Back in the day there were some slightly curved forms of the genera Phragmoceras and Amphicyrtoceras (both Silurian) as well as Acleistoceras (Devonian). These particular genera lived in Ohio, but I suspect you have an example of a related form of that timeframe. Pretty good specimen too.

[skippy804]

I appreciate everyone's replies and I'll try to shrink my pictures. Thanks

[Harry Pristis]

I appreciate everyone's replies and I'll try to shrink my pictures. Thanks

Welcome to the forum, Skippy.

Check out the thread on "photographing fossils" in the FOSSIL MEDIA sub-forum for a discussion of how to post images which are accessible to all the forum members.

------Harry Pristis

[geofossil]

Thanks for sharing your specimen.

Good info above on general identification. These shapes of cephalopods can span the early Ordovician through to the Permian. The only way to ID them other than knowing the age, formation, etc. is to cut them down the center and do an acetate peel of the internal structure. Something one wouldn't do without destroying the integrity of the specimen.

An aside that was drummed into my head by a big red circle a prof once made on one of my research papers. A lot of specimens, especially in Europe, are found along railway lines. Unfortunately in some research (as was my mistake) there is not mention if the specimen is from the rock being cut through to make the track or is part of the stone brought in from elsewhere to lay the track on. To add to the problem the track bed has sometimes been replaced and the debris at the sides can be either old built up beds or the debris of the cut throughs (or both). In the Ruhr valley in Germany a fossil collector can collect a great collection of late Paleozoic invertebrates just by walking the railway lines and studying the track beds.