The Occasional Fossil

Fossil Wasp (NOT to scale!) from Eocene lake beds at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. (photo by Bud Wobus).

Very dang cool. Link goes to the original photo.

The Occasional fossil

This is not one fossil but a whole bunch. Back when this rock was sediment there were all sorts of organisms living in it. As they burrowed through the sediment they made tunnels which, themselves, filled with sediment. When the sediment turned to rock the fluid carry the cementing agent was able to penetrate the relatively un packed filled in tunnel better than the surrounding sediment so as the rock weathers and erodes the tunnels "stick out". Remember from an earlier post these are trace fossils.

the occasional fossil

Protolindenia wittei yep it's a dragon fly from the famous Solnhofen limestone in Germany. A rock deposit well known for containing beautifully preserved fossils.

Today's occasional fossil insipired by this

The Occasional Fossil

Palm frond... just because I'm in an obvious sort of mood.

The Occasional Fossil

This is a crinoid, an animal vaguely related to starfish, sea urchins and sand dollars. They are not extinct, but they are not nearly as common as they used to be. There was a time when the bottom of the continental shelf was teaming with these things, now they seem to be mostly restricted to hyper saline environments. Below I have a reconstruction.

Once again this is an animal, it moves using a water vascular system, it can pump water in and out if it's various parts and when it does so it moves. In graduate school I was once caught in an argument between two professors about whether or not the water vascular system extends all the way to the bottom of the animal. I knew enough to keep my mouth shut. (I just hmmmmed and nodded a lot)

The occasional fossil

oh why wait
I was rooting around the net and found this:



It's a 125 million year old cicada from china. Click on the image to make it bigger, it's worth it I promise. You can see the segmentation of the body and the veins in the wings. That level of preservation is remarkable. I don't know for sure but this was probably preserved in a lake. A lot of the material coming from China is from ancient lakes. Because they usually have very fine sediments and not a lot of water movement lakes are ideal environments for preserving fine detail.

V-Day

Happy valentines day!!!
Go find your sweetie and get your groove on.

The Occasional Fossil

Ok I know I'm slipping, first the Friday fossil then the weekly fossil now... the occasional fossil. Work with me people I'm still finding my pace. I think this is the second trilobite I've done but that's ok trilobites are cool. Above there's a slab with a bunch of trilobites, most of them are Elrathia kingi but if you look very carefully near the top and a little to the right (click on the picture to make it big) you'll see a little thing that looks like a fat figure 8, that's Peronopsis here's a close up of one of those.

Peronopsis is a blind trilobite (most trilobites had really wicked compound eyes) and it's planktonic which means it would just float in the water column. Elrathia is a very common triloite you frequently find them for sale. Many times they're missing a part called the free cheek which makes their heads (which are actually called cephalons.. at least I think that's the plural of cephalon.... cephala???) look squeezed, you can see this in some of the trilobites in the rock above. They're still Elrathia kingi they're just missing their free cheeks. As with many trilobites these are great index fossils, these are common in, and restricted to the Middle Cambrian. So if you find one you know how old the rock is. Very handy

Friday Fossil (Saturday Edition)

The planktonic foraminifera Hantkenina alabamensis.

Photo by Jere Lips