Ammonite Fossil at Basilica di Santa Croce

 

 

Here is a picture of an ammonoid fossil found at Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence, Italy. This building material is a iron enriched (red) limestone also known as Red Verona marble or Rosso Verona marble used in a lot of churches including this one. The material dates to the Upper Jurassic Period of the Rosso Ammonitico Formation, Oxfordian Stage, Verona Province, Venetia Region of Italy. Pictures taken August 2024.

 

Look in the reddish square shapes in front of the tomb of Neri Corsini (1614-1678). Here is map.

Return To the Fossils of the Vatican

Last month, I returned to  St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City near Rome, Italy. On September 3, 2019 I posted a blog entry about finding ammonite fossils in some of the floor slabs on a visit there. This building material is a iron enriched (red) limestone also known as Red Verona marble or Rosso Verona marble used in a lot of churches including this one. I now know to look for fossils when I see the reddish-pink stone in floors. The material dates to the Upper Jurassic Period of the Rosso Ammonitico Formation, Oxfordian Stage, Verona Province, Venetia Region of Italy.

 

On this visit, I investigated some of the slabs in more obscure locations like the corners along walls and found some very nicely preserved ammonoid fossils. It appears the stone mason might have intentional put some of these slabs with fossils there and they have held up well since people are not walking on that surface.

Fossils at Neuschwanstein Castle

Neuschwanstein castle is an iconic building that is one of the most visited tourist spots in Germany. It is located in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany near the Austrian border. King Ludwig II began building the castle in 1869 and was still not completed by the time of his death in 1886.

I don't think the stone these fossils were found in was original the when the castle was being built in the 1800s. They are in the floor tile of a hallway that leads out the gift shop to where the restrooms are and then a door way going to some stairs which lead to the lower levels of the castle where the kitchens were.

The fossils are to ammonids probably from the Jurassic or Cretaceous Periods.

Ammonoid or Gastropod?... That Is the Question.

 Here are some pictures of a recent find at one of our work sites in Bullitt County Kentucky USA. It appears to be from the Louisville Limestone or might be dolomite. It dates to the Silurian Period.

Thanks to Levi for the fossil and now we will try to remove some of the matrix to see if any patterns are left from the shell that might give a clue as to what this creature was and maybe its name.

The bottom of the rock has an imprint of a bryozoan fossil.

Ammonoid Fossils At Martin Luther King Jr Memorial

 

When in Washington, D.C. in June of 2023, I got a chance to visit the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. The gift shop at the memorial has quite a few fossils in its polished slab floor. They are ammonoids, not sure of their names, time period, or geological formation. Thanks to Christopher Barr of dcfossils.org for letting me know about these fossils.

Archive web site for dcfossils.org if you cannot reach it from main web address.

Fossil Ammonoids in New Albany Indiana

 

I was surprised to find Italian ammonoid fossils in New Albany Indiana USA. While visiting St. Mary of the Annunciation Catholic Church located at East Eighth and Spring Streets I spotted the red marble like limestone I had seen before in Italy and at the Boston Public library building. It appears that the floor of the church alter area has strips of Red Verona or Rosso Verona marble in it. This rock dates to the Upper Jurassic Period of the Rosso Ammonitico Formation, Oxfordian Stage, Verona Province, Venetia Region of Italy.

 

According to the church web site, the building was dedicated on December 12, 1858 primarily serving the German-speaking immigrants of the area. In the 1920s, renovations brought Carrara Italian marble to the alters, communion rail, sanctuary floor, baptismal font and wainscoting. 

 

As to why I was at the church, rest in peace Kenneth E. Popp (1932-2023).

You can read of my previous encounters with Red Verona marble at these postings:

https://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2019/09/ammonite-fossils-in-st-ignazio-church.html

https://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2019/09/fossils-at-st-peters-basilica-in-rome.html

https://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2022/08/red-ammonoid-fossils-at-central-boston.html

Lituites marshi Fossil

 

Lituites marshi (Hall, 1867) ammonoid fossil found in Louisville, Kentucky USA. It dates to the Silurian Period and was probably found in the Louisville Limestone. This image is from the 1889 Kentucky Fossil Shells by Henry Nettelroth in Plate XXX figure 1. "Found in the Niagara rocks of the quarries east of the city of Louisville, where fragments of this shell are not rare, but fair specimens are not often found. In the speciment illustrated on plate 30, both termini of the shell are missing; it has preserved more than three complete volutions. The vacant central space indicates that, probably, two full volutions are obliterated there at the apex. How much there is destroyed at the other end can not be acertained, but that there is a large part of a volution missing can not be doubted. Thus it appears that the illustrated specimen, in its perfect condition, had six full volutions." Professor James Hall (1811-1898) named this species in honor of Professor Othniel Charles Marsh (1831-1899).

This fossil is stored at the Smithsonian and was assigned catalog number: USNM PAL 51378.

Here is a posting from 2009 of one of these fossils found in Louisville:

https://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2009/05/silurian-coiled-cephalopod-lituites.html

Red Ammonoid Fossils at Central Boston Public Library

The biggest surprise for me when I visited Boston last week was the Boston Public Library's McKim Building. It is an artistic and geological wonder. So many ammonite fossils embedded in the marble floor tiles. The complex is known as the Central Library in Copley Square of Boston, Massachusetts, USA. The City of Boston chartered their public library system in 1848. Decades later having outgrown previous locations they awarded a contract in 1887 to the firm of McKim, Mead, and White to build what is now known as the McKim Building. The cornerstone was placed in 1888 in which Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in his dedication poem, "This palace is the people's own" (origin of it's later name "Palace of the People"). The building completed in 1895 at cost of 2.2 million dollars. Charles Follen McKim (1847-1909) was the chief architect for this building.

On the second floor of the McKim Building is the Abbey Room (originally the Book Delivery Room where books were picked up by patrons). The walls of the room have fifteen panels depicting Sir Galahad's Quest for the Holy Grail painted by Edwin Austin Abbey (1852-1911). He used Alfred, Lord  Tennyson's story Idylls of the King for the basis of these paintings. The checkerboard pattern of tiles on the floor are white Istrian limestone and red Verona marble (limestone aka Rosso Verona). Some of these reddish-pink tiles contain coiled ammonoids similar to what I found in Italy at Rome's St. Ignazio Church and Vatican City's St. Peter's Basilica.

Elwell, Newton W. "Delivery room." Photograph. Boston, Mass.: Geo. H. Polley & Co., 1896. Digital Commonwealth, https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/6h440w43c (accessed August 21, 2022).

 

 

 

It is amazing that these tiles have been in place for over 100 years. These ammonoids date to the Upper Jurassic Period of the Rosso Ammonitico Formation, Oxfordian Stage, Verona Province, Venetia Region of Italy.

Further reading:

https://quarriesandbeyond.org/states/ia/ia-structures.htm

https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:ms35tx11f

https://slownomads.phoosh.net/fossil-hunting-in-verona/

 https://www.marmirossi.com/en/news/focus-materials/the-historical-bond-between-marble-and-verona

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jsjgeology/14802172801 

Muensteroceras (Goniatites) indianensis Drawing from 1891

 

This image was scanned and Photoshop enhanced from Plate XIX figure 2 in Indiana Department of Geology and Natural Resources Seventeenth Annual Report 1891 by  Sylvester Scott Gorby (1848-1930). It is described on page 700 as a new species Goniatites indianensis (Miller, 1891). Fossil found in the lower Carboniferous Period.

"The species is founded upon two sandstone casts from the Knobstone or Waverly Group, of Clark County, Indiana, now in the State Museum of Indianapolis. The smaller specimen is only half the diameter of the one illustrated." The illustration measures about 30 mm across. Below is dorsal view shown in figure 3.

 

New name:Muensteroceras indianense

http://www.fossilworks.org/cgi-bin/bridge.pl?a=taxonInfo&taxon_no=278460

Prodromites (Goniatites) gorbyi Drawing

This image was scanned and Photoshop enhanced from Plate XV figure 1 in Indiana Department of Geology and Natural Resources Seventeenth Annual Report 1891 by  Sylvester Scott Gorby (1848-1930). It is described on page 700 as a new species Goniatites gorbyi (Miller, 1891). "Collected by R. A. Blair, in the lower part of the Choteau limestone or Waverly Group, at Pin Hook Bridge, in Pettis County, Missouri, and now in the collection of the author (Samuel Almond Miller [1836-1897]). The specific name is in honor of Prof. S. S. Gorby, State Geologist. The plate lists "FR BANK DEL" so that is who created the image.

This genus was renamed in 1901 in Prodromites, A New Ammonite Genus from the Lower Carboniferous by James Perrin Smith (1864-1931) and Stuart Weller (1870-1927) in The Journal of Geology April-May 1901 Volume 9, Number 3 pages 255-266. The write on page 259, "Neither the description nor the figure given by Miller of this type is accurate, the drawings of the septa being entirely too generalized." The specimen is now at the Paleontological Collection Walker Museum University of Chicago No. 6208. Diameter 114 mm, height of last whorl 64 mm, height of last whorl from the proceeding 35 mm. They put a picture on Plate VI, figure 1 shown below:

It does not appear the Walker Museum exists any more. The building is now used by the English department at the university. https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/collex/exhibits/building-long-future/george-c-walker/

Source:

Smith, James Perrin, and Stuart Weller. “Prodromites, a New Ammonite Genus from the Lower Carboniferous.” The Journal of Geology, vol. 9, no. 3, The University of Chicago Press, 1901, pp. 255–66, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30056692.