Waaay OT: Fossils? UPDATE WITH ANSWERS!

[TedH]

Seems like whatever the OT topic, there is someone here that is knowledgeable on the subject. So I thought I would throw this out for ya'll.

I was out deer hunting on the folks farm a while back I found this rock containing two similar fossils. I at first assumed it was just a couple pieces of wood, but after looking at many photos of petrified wood I have found nothing that looks similar. On one side of the rock one of the fossils is "rotted" and looks to have some kind of webbing on the inside?

I guess I should have put something in the photos for scale. The diameter of the fossils is approximately 1.5"

Any thoughts?

[PaperPatch]

Neat find there!

I would contact the nearest University Biology Department, and perhaps e-mail these pictures to them. On first glance...plant or animal???

Good luck, and let us know what it turns out to be.

[cnjarvis]

The top two most remind me of a cactus.

[JerryB]

I bet somebody at the school in Rolla could help with it. Please do keep us up on it.

[deerwhacker444]

The top two most remind me of a cactus.

Yeah, I was thinking some sort of large woody plant. I tried doing a search for plant fossils, but haven't found anything yet.

[don Tomás]

Dinosaur coprolite???
(Dino doo)

Seriously, please let us know what you find out. What a neat find...
Tom

[Travis Morgan]

Ancient mudboot print. Definitely.

[SmokeEater2]

Dinosaur coprolite???

Seriously, please let us know what you find out. What a neat find...
Tom

[Jaguarundi]

Fossilized stalk of a coral like Sea Anemone(Sessile anthozoan group).Description of phylum Cnidariahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnidaria.Link to some Cnidaria fossils http://www.paleoportal.org/index.php?gl ... search&p=0.

[1886]

The top two most remind me of a cactus.

I agree but what do I know?. 1886.

[milton]

They appear to be fossil 'horn corals" or a solitary coral.The end going into the rock should come to a point.

[TedH]

I sent the photos to the University of Missouri Columbia Geology Dept this morning.

[66GTO]

They appear to be fossil 'horn corals" or a solitary coral.The end going into the rock should come to a point.

Yea, I was thinking maybe a fossilized sponge, but coral sounds more like it.

Let us know what the university experts say.

[TedH]

I got a very detailed reply from a Professor at the University. Jaguarundi and milton nailed it!

This is very long, but I found it to be quite interesting.

"Dear Mr. XXXXXXX:

Your inquiry regarding the specimens you found in Warren County was
referred to me by Ms. XXXXXXX of our departmental office staff. One of them
is a well-preserved fossil and easy to recognize, the other is less complete
but still clearly identifiable. Both are fossil corals surrounded by a mass
of chert, the white background material shown in your photographs. Both the
fossils and the rock they are embedded in tell me that your specimens came
from that part of the bedrock of Missouri that geologists have identifed as
the Osagean Series of the Mississippian System which contains two rock
units, the Burlington Limestone and the overlying Keokuk Limestone. As
these names suggest, these sheet-like masses of rock were first identified
in southeastern Iowa. They have been recognized there through much of
Missouri including all of Warren County other than the southern part where
they have been removed by erosion of streams tributary to the Missouri
River. As best this can be established, these corals were living on the
order of 335 million years ago.

Both of your specimens are the skeletal supports of solitary corals that
had a wrinkled external surface so that they are identified as rugose
(wrinkled corals) and an internal architecture that shows a fourfold
subdivision leading to them also being called tetracorals. Usually they are
curved like a cow's horn so that leads to their most frequently used
name--horn corals. They were quite different from modern reef-forming
corals that typically involve many individuals that share a common skeleton
that forms the solid mass of a reef. Instead, horn corals existed in
separation from each other. Their larvae settled down on a solid surface on
the sea floor and attached themselves to it by depositing lime to form a
base on which they settled. The animal had a hollow sack-shaped body that
was infolded interior as linear pleats that subdivided the hollow central
cavity where digestion and ingestion of food occurred. The mouth was a
simple opening at the top of the body and surrounded by an array of
food-gathering tentacles.

As the animal enlarged over time, it also deposited more lime extending
the length of the skeleton and formed a cup-shaped depression termed the
calyx at the top. The lower part of the body was seated in this depression.
The interior of the skeleton was subdivided by radial plates which we term
septae; they occupied the space within the pleats in the wall of the body
and grew longer as the skeleton increased in length. The animal oriented
itself so that its body was oriented directly upward and, so long as
nothing interfered, growth and elongation of the skeleton was in an upward
direction as well. But this would produce a straight, conical skeleton.
However, these things lived in relatively shallow water which is not still,
particularly with occasional storms so that the orientation was shifted from
vertical to leaning or even horizontal which reduced the food-gathering
efficiency of the organism. It compensated by orienting itself back in the
vertical position, which, of course, changed the direction of future growth
of the skeleton. If this happened repeatedly, repeated changes in direction
of growth over the life of the individual resulted in the horn shape that so
many of them have.

Now to your specimens. The one shown in images 1573 and 1574 shows such
an internal mold of such a skeleton. You should notice a number of things
in 1573. First of all the specimen is increasing somewhat in size from left
to right which indicates that it was growing bigger around with time, i.e.
the left end is the older part of the skeleton (actually the term corallum
is probably better than skeleton when speaking of a coral). The linear,
parallel lines represent the position of the septae that divided the
interior of the conical skeleton. Close inspection reveals the presence of
faint, parallelm, somewhat wavy lines that that cut across the specimen at
right angles to the septae. These represent transverse partitions called
tabulae that were added periodically during growth to provide a solid
substrate for the body of the organism and to provide additional internal
strength to the skeleton. Closer examination also shows that a thin space is
present between the fossil and the enclosing chert. This space originally
was occupied by an organic material, secreted by the organism that covered
the skeleton. The actual shell was limy material, and, following death, it
was buried by limy mud. Subsequently water containing silicon dioxide in
solution percolated through the mud and/or the rock which the mud became and
the limy material including the coral skeleton was replaced by chert, The
organic material was not replaced but eventually decayed leaving the space.
I suspect, and the photo seems to support my contention, that the calyx is
at the right end of this specimen but not visible because it is filled in
with chert.

As to the other specimen, the one to the right in photo 1577, clearly is
the same sort of thing viewed end on as the one on the left which is the one
described above. And the two are quite similar in character indicating that
they are fossils of the same kind of coral--two children of the same family
so to speak. But part of the one on the right clearly has been broken away.
The remaining photo, 1576, shows the broken part of that specimen and you
see that it displays a number of thin transverse partitions that suggest a
stack of corn flakes. These are the tabulae that reinforced the interior of
the skeleton.

These corals are fairly common in the Mississippian rocks of Missouri,
but the specimens you found display the internal features of the skeletons
more clearly than is the case with many of them. I cannot be certain which
these are of the several kinds of horn corals known from Missouri, but I
believe they most likely are of a kind that has been called Neozaphrentis.
Those rocks also contain corals that were colonial with many individuals
crowded together, each forming a skeleton of its own that collectively form
a solid mass of skeletons bound together. Some of them grew to sizes of a
foot or more in diameter with many tens of individuals within them.

I hope this, or at least some it, is of interest to you. If you need
clarification for any of it, please do not hesitate to ask for it.

Sincerely yours,
XXXXXXXXXXX
Professor Emeritus of Geology
University of Missouri

[don Tomás]

Thanks for the update. Just too cool...
Tom

(That's one heck of a form letter!! )

[Sixgun]

Goodness! I have never seen such a thorough explaination in all my life That would be enough to make me send them a donation of some sort. Good people!

While hunting in the Rockies, we find fossils of leaves and little snails all the time. You hit a nice one!---------Sixgun

[PaperPatch]

Way cool!!!

So then...are these salt-water creatures?

[Bullet Bob]

Makes me realize how much knowledge is out there that I don't have a clue about.

[2ndovc]

Pretty cool.

Reminds me of Tommy the Trilobite from geology class.
We find a lot of 'em in these parts.


jb

[dr walker]

That is cool. That professor definitly answered your questions. My daughter is the one in our family who loves searching for natural treasures. Thanks for sharing pics and reply.

[Hobie]

[JReed]

that is really cool millions of years stored and waiting for you to find.

[mescalero1]

Just got back from New Mexico, guy from Florida lives up there.
Found something unusual up there, he SWEARS it is coral.
It was at 7,200 feet!

[Travis Morgan]

Well, I guess he thought "It's coral." would have been insufficient.

[SmokeEater2]

Now that's just cool! Thanks for the update.

[DerekR]

I routinely find sea shells on our property here in MiddleTennessee. They claim that this part of our State was once the sea floor of a shallow ocean.
Crazy, huh?

[Noah Zark]

Ted:

"Dear Mr. XXXXXXX:

Your inquiry regarding the specimens you found in Warren County was
referred to me by Ms. XXXXXXX of our departmental office staff. . . .

Is Ms. XXXXXXX any relation to you?

Noah

[Borregos]

That is really interesting, thanks for posting

[TedH]

Ted:

"Dear Mr. XXXXXXX:

Your inquiry regarding the specimens you found in Warren County was
referred to me by Ms. XXXXXXX of our departmental office staff. . . .

Is Ms. XXXXXXX any relation to you?

Noah

No relation, just a coincedence.