Irradiatus Posted August 8, 2009 Share Posted August 8, 2009 So, I'm moving to Pittsburgh. This week my wife and I are making three back-to-back trips between NC and PA. We just finished the first trip moments ago. Luckily, I convinced my wife to let me spend five minutes looking at a roadcut next to a Burger King in the middle of nowhere, West Virginia (along Hwy 19 I believe). I found this pretty cool fossil embedded among some very very tiny and thin coal seams in the roadcut. Can someone ID it? I am utterly ignorant on botanical fossils (save some lepidodendrons). As a bonus, I have also attached my first meg and a chub I pulled from the Aurora, NC spoil piles this week "The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be. " - Douglas Adams Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auspex Posted August 8, 2009 Share Posted August 8, 2009 That's a nice Calamites stem. Congrats on it and the Meg! "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irradiatus Posted August 8, 2009 Author Share Posted August 8, 2009 Awesome! Based on all the coal seams I could see in the surrounding layers as I drove through there, I figured it was probably carboniferous. I can't tell you how much mental anguish it caused me to drive for hour upon hour through nothing but massive roadcuts in WV, unable to stop and do some hunting. But I was driving a giant Penske truck with a (rightfully) impatient wife... How strange is it that finding a tiny piece of plant fossil made the entire 24 hour trip worthwhile? "The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be. " - Douglas Adams Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irradiatus Posted August 8, 2009 Author Share Posted August 8, 2009 Question: is it pronounced with "mites" like the insects, or more like "mit-ese"? "The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be. " - Douglas Adams Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auspex Posted August 8, 2009 Share Posted August 8, 2009 Question: is it pronounced with "mites" like the insects, or more like "mit-ese"? I've always said the latter (but then again. I have a reader's vocabulary). Here's Wiki, for your delectation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calamites <Welcome to the world of "form species", where different parts of the same plant were described and genera and species erected without knowledge of their relationships> "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irradiatus Posted August 8, 2009 Author Share Posted August 8, 2009 Confused! Okay, to quote Wiki: "Calamites correctly refers only to casts of the stem of Carboniferous/Permian sphenophytes, and as such is a form genus of little taxonomic value." It also lists the other "organ taxa," meaning genus/species names given to various parts found fossilized and not identified as part of a unified species. So has no one ever formally given a "correct" genus name for the entire organism? (since Calamites isn't "correct" according to the above) i.e. has no one officially united the organ taxa under a single genus (if not specific species)? This all reminds me of "Anomalocaris" from the Burgess Shale (parts originally identified, entertainingly, as various other organisms - incorrectly). "The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be. " - Douglas Adams Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auspex Posted August 9, 2009 Share Posted August 9, 2009 Docdutronc is authoring a book that will make it possible to sort through all the confusing taxonomy of the upper Carboniferous plants. I am first in line for a copy "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest solius symbiosus Posted August 9, 2009 Share Posted August 9, 2009 Calamites is a general term to describe the stalk of sphenopsids. Describing the leaves is a bit more specific, e,g; Annularia, Asterophyllites, ... ect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docdutronc Posted August 9, 2009 Share Posted August 9, 2009 Hi It is calamites stem ,the colour is funny ,look Calamites from my aera ( in compression ) and actual Equisetum ,closest to the existing plants of these fossil plants of the Carboniferous period ...these plants are articulated and each node corresponds to the start of a new branch...,these equisetum live near my bassin and like water ,like in carboniferous period !!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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