A cousin found this coiled Silurian cephalopod in the Louisville Limestone last week. I think it is about 10 cm in diameter. Wow, I only find orthoceras (straight) cephalopods and even then they are rare finds in the Silurian rock. This one was found in Louisville, Kentucky USA.
This one might be a Lituites marshi (Hall) shown on Plate XXX Figure 1 in the 1889 Kentucky Fossil Shells - A Monograph of Fossil Shells of the Silurian and Devonian Rocks of Kentucky by Henry Nettelroth (1835-1887) at this University of Kentucky website (www.uky.edu/OtherOrgs/KPS/books/nettelroth/files/nettlerothplates.pdf).
What a beautiful specimen. We found an identical one, though not as complete in NW Illinois. We had assumed it to be Silurian, but were unsure on account of these are rocks that had been transported to a boat dock. Also interesting is that there are quite a few of them in the rocks there even though we have not seen any anywhere else in Silurian rocks.
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