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Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Silurian Foraminifera


While working on a project taking pictures of Chinese foraminiferas collected in the 1980s, I took a picture of this specimen while the equipment was setup.  It is a foram found in the Silurian period Osgood Shale of  Ripley County, Indiana. My guess is it might be some sort of Ammodiscus. Dr. James Conkin collected this specimen some years ago. Second image is specimen wet after an attempt to move it with a wet brush.


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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousDecember 21, 2011 at 1:49 PM

    Hi, Mike--

    Another possibility is Lituotuba: "Test free or attached, early stage irregularly coiled undivided tube...later stage uncoiling and becoming rectilinear...Silurian to Recent, cosmopolitan" (Treatise, p. C214).

    --Howard

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  2. Michael PoppDecember 23, 2011 at 9:21 PM

    Thanks for the suggestion Howard.

    I used a 2011 publication entitled Reconnissance of Foraminifera in the Silurian and Devonian of Western Tennessee by James and Barbara Conkin to come up with the name. Figure 4 lists Lower Paleozoic foraminiferal genera, the Silurian section shows the Ammodiscus and next to the Lituotuba. The Lituotuba does make a good possibility.

    Happy Holidays!

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