Modern Brachiopod

This specimen came from the Dr. James Conkin collection. It had no label and I suppose was used for teaching purposes to show what a non-extinct species of brachiopod looked like. It definitely looks like a lamp shell. At first I thought it might be easy to figure out its name but now I am not sure. It might be a species of Laqueus. I know some are found off the coast of California. My next idea was to look at images I took at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. They had a picture of a lamp shell called Liothyrella notoreadensis that look similar to this one. They had several containers on display with no names so these creatures are a lot more diverse than I realized.

So I am not sure where it is from or its exact name.

Palm Stem Fossil from Sardinia

This picture is of a palm stem silica fossil. It was found in Sardinia. The fossil dates to the Tertiary Period.

It was on display at the British Natural History Museum in London on August 2016.

Fossils at The Dallas Arboretum

In March 2012, I was contacted by the landscape architectural firm MKW + Associates, LLC (Rutherford, New Jersey) about using some the fossil images on my blog to be used for new educational exhibit at The Dallas Arboretum in Texas. This new area would be called Rory Meyers Children's Adventure Garden. It sounded like a great educational use for some of the fossil images for this non-profit organization so I granted them permission to use the pictures for free.

The pictures images are engraved on granite slabs representing 12 geographic times. The fossils they requested to use are a Waldron Shale Fardenia brachiopod to represent the Silurian, St. Clair, Pennsylvania fern fossil to represent the Carboniferous, and a Green River Wyoming fish fossil to represent Tertiary.

On September 21, 2013, the new 8 acre garden was opened to the general public. It has 150 displays contained in 17 inside and outside galleries. As you can see in the following pictures, the fossils where placed on the walkway. Hopefully it will have many visitors to learn and marvel at the ancient beauty of these creatures images. Quite a few people visit The Dallas Arboretum with attendance over 660,000 visitors a year (according to a 2011 economic study).

Thanks to MKW + Associates, LLC for letting me use their pictures of the Dallas site for this blog posting.
They can be reached at: http://www.mkwla.com/

Fossil images used in the sidewalk can be seen at this postings:
http://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2009/11/green-river-fossil-fish.html
http://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2011/03/fardenia-subplana-brachiopod.html
http://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2010/04/st-clair-pennsylvania-fern-fossils.html

Thanks to Dave at http://viewsofthemahantango.blogspot.com/ blog for the fern fossil.
Thanks to my cousin Kenny for the photograph of the fish fossil he painstakingly prepared.