Sunday, August 8, 2010

Graptolites


All the pictures in this post are from the same plate.  The first two are of the top and bottom of that plate.  Fossils shown on the plate appear to be graptolites (colonial Paleozoic plankton).  These were found in the Kope Formation of Carroll County, Kentucky dated to the Ordovician Period.

The Fossils of Ohio book list a number of graptolite species found in the Kope Formation: Dicellograptus flexuosus, Dicranograptus nicholsoni, Climacograptus spiniferus, Geniculograptus typicalis typicalis, Geniculograptus pygmaeus, and Orthograptus quadrimucronatus.




Learn more, read Chapter 19 Phylum Hemichordata, Class Graptolithina by Stig M. Bergström in Fossils of Ohio (1996), pp.270-281.