Merry Fossil Christmas 2017

This year's Christmas greeting image was created with specimens from two locations.

The star (thin section of crinoid stem), trunk (eroded crinoid stem), circular ornament (button coral) and drop shaped ornament (anchor crinoid stem) were obtained from the Devonian Period Jeffersonville/Beechwood/Speed Limestone of Clark County, Indiana USA. The anchor crinoid is a Ancyrocrinus sp. found in the Beechwood Limestone and the button coral is a Hadrophyllum orbignyi from the Speed Limestone.

The tree portion is an Atlantic Auger gastropod shell (Terebra dislocata) and the small fragment ornament is a broken piece of a sea urchin. Both of these specimens were found at Folly Beach near Charleston South Carolina, USA.


To visitors of this blog, I wish you a Merry Christmas and hope the new year brings you new finds in search for fossils in the world around you.

Merry Fossil Christmas 2016

It has become a tradition for me to each year to Photoshop a fossil Christmas tree image together. This year I went in a little different and used a fossil I 3D printed. The tree consists of a Megalodon tooth printed on a RepRapGuru printer and using the Repetier Host software with the Cura slicer. The print image can be found on Thingiverse and was posted by Emdahus.  I had to print with supports and then cut them out of the image, without them the print would move off the glass surface between layer 3-40.

Most prints have been with PLA filament from Hatchbox and 3D Solutech.

The fossil ornaments were ones I used on the 2014 Christmas image. http://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2014/12/merry-christmas-2014.html

Merry Christmas 2015

If you are viewing this blog I wish you a Merry Christmas. I hope 2016 brings you many good fossil finds.

This year's design features four fossils. They were all found in Grayson County Kentucky USA. Three different crinoid fossils were used for the tree trunk, ornaments and star. The tree body was a horn coral. I do not know their names but they are from the Mississippian Period (Carboniferous).

Merry Christmas 2014

I hope anyone reading this has a Merry Christmas. May the new year bring good health and fun fossil finds!

This year's design features three fossils. A fern fossil from Pennsylvanian Period for St. Clair Pennsylvania, a Pliocene sand dollar fossil from Mexico makes up the ornaments, and the star consists of a Cretaceous shark teeth from South Dakota.

Merry Fossil Christmas

Here is my Christmas image for 2013 created with fossils found in the Waldron Shale of Indiana. They date back about 420 million years (Silurian Period).

The body of the tree is a Trimerus trilobite with the trunk created with the stem of Eucalyptocrinus crinoid stem fossil. The ornaments are either the Caryocrinites cystoid or Astylospongia sponge fossils. The star at the top is a group of Stegerhynchus brachiopods. All the fossil images were recolored in Photoshop for a more Christmas like theme.

Hope everyone has a safe holiday season and a productive 2014 new year!

Thanks to Kenny for the idea about using the Waldron fossils for this year theme. I usually select a horn coral fossil for the tree body but a trilobite has a nice tree shape to it.

Merry Christmas - Fossil Style

Merry Christmas to all! This years fossil greeting was made with a Silurian horn coral, snail and crinoid stem fossil, along with a microfossil star crinoid shape from the Ordovician and an Eocene foraminifera for an ornament.

Thanks to Dave for the foraminifera and Kenny for the star crinoid image.

Peace and prosperity to you in the new year of 2013!

Merry Fossil Christmas 2011

Merry Christmas to one and all! Another Christmas season is upon us and as I have done the last two holidays, a fossil Christmas tree has been created with the aid of Adobe Photoshop.

The 2011 tree was made with a combination of seven fossils from the Paleozoic Era.  The Devonian period contributed the horn coral which makes up the body of the tree and crinoid stem that makes up the trunk. Both were found in the Jeffersonville Limestone of Clark County, Indiana, USA. The star patterned crinoid stem segments make the top star and ornament.  Thanks to Kenny for finding those in the Mississippian Period Borden Formation of Clark County, Indiana. The screw shaped icicle decoration is an Archimedes bryozoan and the orange tear shaped ornament is a Pentremites blastoid.  Both fossils are Mississippian in age and were found in the Indian Springs formation of Crawford County, Indiana. The purple elliptical ornament is a Mississippian crinoid stem segment found at Lake Cumberland, Kentucky. See picture at bottom of posting to see actual fossil appearances.

Two more tree versions were created on in German and another in Spanish for some of the non-English readers on the Internet.

The picture below shows the fossils used to create the Christmas greeting graphic.

Merry Fossil Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas to one and all!  May you get lots of geological goodies this holiday season.  Hope the new year brings good health and safe travels.

For the curious, this years image contains fossils from four time periods.  The star, red and blue ornaments are Ordovician crinoid stem pieces of Madison, Indiana.  The trunk is an unidentified crinoid stem from the Silurian Waldron Shale of Clark County, Indiana.  The tree body is an unidentified horn coral from the Devonian Jeffersonville Limestone of Clark County, Indiana.  Last, the yellow ornaments are unidentified crinoid/blastoid stem pieces from the Mississippian Period limestones of Crawford County, Indiana.  All the fossils have had their colors modified to match a real Christmas tree.

See this April 2010 blog post on the Ordovician crinoid pieces for their identifications.