The Ammonite Church?

On a recent visit to Boston, Massachusetts USA, a church visible from the street had ammonite pattern at the top of the building. I took some pictures of the pediment. The church is The Cathedral Church of St. Paul and it turns out the pattern is of a nautilus. 

 

It appears to have been inspired by Boston's own Oliver Wendell Holmes 1858 poem "The Chambered Nautilus".

 

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,—
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,—
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:—

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea! 

 

Above is a picture of an actual chambered nautilus (Nautilus pompilius) found at Schouten Island Tasmania. It was on display in August 2022 at the Harvard Museum of Natural History at Cambridge Massachusetts USA (MCZ 184602). Another great place to visit when in the Boston area.

 

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) was also famous for the 1830 poem "Old Ironsides" which is about U.S.S. Constitution. A definite visit when in Boston to see the U.S. Navy's oldest active ship.

Another picture of U.S.S. Constitution of it's hull with seaweed floating near by.

 

Bickmorites Nautiloid Fossil

This fossil appears to be a Bickmorites bickmoreanum nautiloid. It was found in the Silurian aged Louisville Limestone layer of Jefferson County, Kentucky, USA. Cephalopod fossils like this are pretty rate to find in the Louisville area.

Thanks to Kenny for letting me take pictures of it. Note some images have been darken in Photoshop to allow better contrast of chamber lines in fossil. Also fossil has been coated with sealer giving it a wet look.

Here is a link to a picture of one at Yale found in Indiana: http://www.yale.edu/ypmip/taxon/ceph/19158.html

Coiled Nautiloid Fossil Imprint

Over the Thanksgiving holiday I received an image of a fossil imprint of some sort of coiled nautiloid. It was found on the Indiana side of the Ohio River in the Louisville, Kentucky area. The only fossils I know of like that are found in the Louisville Limestone of Silurian Period. If it is a Silurian fossil it might be a Graftonoceras graftonense?. Other Silurian cephalopods found in the area are the Lituites marshi? shown an earlier posting and the Bickmorites shown here.

Thanks to Dana for the images.

Silurian Green Fossil - Bickmorites?

Sometimes when one is searching for fossils in the field, color is important as opposed to just trying to visually match shapes and patterns. In the case of today's posting, the color green is important. The Silurian Period Louisville Limestone found in Jefferson County, Kentucky at times has green blotches that show through. I assume this is a sign of some sort of copper being present. (UPDATE: see comment section as the green material might be glauconite.) My cousin told me this could be a sign of a cephalopod fossil which tend to be difficult to find in this rock layer. Mostly one finds corals (chain or colonial types) and some brachiopods with rare trilobite or graptolite fragments. Years ago, I saw cephalopod fossils found by others but recently I came across the remains shown in these first three pictures. After visiting the Indiana State Museum and seeing some of their Silurian cephalopod specimens, a green color was present in some of those specimens. Their material was from the Wabash Formation if I remember correctly. This formation might not quite match up with the Louisville Limestone.

These next two Bickmorites sp. specimens can be found on the first floor of the Indiana State Museum as of May 2012. They are in the fossil area in the Silurian case.

See a Bickmorites sp. specimen at the Indiana State Museum on-line database.

Last two images are magnified areas of the green fossil I found in the Louisville Limestone. Learn more about these creatures at this web site.

UPDATE:
A reader of this blog, avid fossil collector, and chemist Jack Kesling of Pennsylvania sent me a nice fossil find that relates to this posting. He found this unidentified Silurian cephalopod fossil with a lot of greenish material on it. The fossil was found in the Bertie Formation of Herkimer County, New York.

Photo by Jack Kesling

Cephalopod Nautiloid at Louisville Science Center

Here is a fossil that can be found at the Louisville Science Center on the 2nd floor, western corner of the building, next to the windows looking out of the Ohio River.

The label said it was from the Devonian period and its identification was cephalopod nautiloid.

It does not look like anything I have found here in Louisville, Kentucky.