Fossil Hunting Trip

[POD-L]

Kevin
Yes both are from the same locality, we have found several types of ammonite including heteromorphs.
Rick

 

[Architeuthoceras]

Sometimes you just dont find anything like a prized fossil. These are some I found in the Early Triassic Sinbad Formation, probably Anasibirites. though they dont look like much, they still have a story to tell.

 

[POD-L]

Yes, It is often not the pretty specimens that are the most important . New species for any formation can help link it with others worldwide

 

[Architeuthoceras]

Also; broken, incomplete, and poorly preserved fossils in a muddy matrix usually mean they were deposited fairly close to shore, at or slightly below wave base. This tells us the relative depth of the water where the fossils were deposited.

 

[willsquish]

Great finds. Anyone know a quick place for even the less flashy of ammonites in mid texas through oklahoma? Going to be driving through there soon. Just got a couple plectronocerids.
-Will

 

[Architeuthoceras]

I know they have Ordovician Cephalopods in the Oil Creek and Joins Formations in Ok. And some very well preserved Carboniferous fossils also. I Just dont know where to look, sorry.

Any pics of these Plectronocerids?

 

[willsquish]

That's ok, found some nice ammonites and some echinoids with them around Fort Worth in a creek. Pics soon!

 

[willsquish]

Plectronocerids!

Here you go. The one triangular larger one on the right, I believe, is a palaeoceras. The white portion is just over one inch in length. The rock and lichen did interesting effects that made these pop out a bit. The chambers clearly got more filled with calcite, which apparently these lichen don't like (liche?). And these are left uncovered. Other chambers closer to the end and the living chamber filled with the surrounding matrix and got more degraded and colonized. One can see a faint outline of the wall of the living chamber on the palaeoceras.

The one somewhat large sliver of white, with a second sliver of white to the left of the palaeoceras along with the faint outline in the matrix there, I believe is a plectronoceras.

There's a small sort of very small slender fellow below the one on the right, which may be a balkoceras, or one of the not-quite-cephalopods that also happened at the end of the cambrian. Ones with chambers but no siphuncle.

 

[willsquish]

Ft Worth ammonites

And here's a couple things found just before lunch on our way out of Texas. A completeish though eroded one I found, and a nicely preserved partial that mom found. The partial's about 4 to 4.5 inches long, and the whole's about 5 or 6 inches diameter.

 

[Architeuthoceras]

A few fossils found over the weekend. Scaphites whitfieldi, Prionocyclus novamexicanus and Baculites yokoyamai. And Dan collecting with the La Sal Mts in the background

 

[Terri]

Nice! The detail is amazing for such a tiny little fossil, what age would these be?
So glad you were finally able to go out and find "stuff"!

 

[Architeuthoceras]

Thanks Terri, it was nice to get out. All the snow we had really settled the dust and washed the fossils off this year.

These are Late Turonian (Late Cretaceous).

 

[DWhatley]

I am pretty sure that is the first shot you have posted on such flat territory. Looks like you will have easy pickin's this year.

 

[Architeuthoceras]

A few fossil cephalopods found this weekend. Top, a few examples of Bajarunia confusionensis. Bottom, one of the last of the orthocones. All from the Early Triassic (Spathian).

 

[Architeuthoceras]

A few found today in the Confusion Range:
A small Lusitanites subcircularis, Mississippian Chainman Shale
A crushed Lusitanoceras granosum, same
Internal and external mold of Idahocolumbites cheneyi with a clam, Triassic Thaynes Group.