Worm Tube Fossil

These pictures are of a worm tube fossil. Fossil found in the New Providence Formation of Clark County, Indiana USA. It dates to the Mississippian Period. Thanks to Kenny for the images.

 

Alpena Michigan Microfossils

 

My cousin screened through a lot of micro material I brought back from Alpena Michigan USA in October 2021. It was found in the Potter Farm Formation and dates to Middle Devonian Period (Erian Age). 

The brachiopod fossil in boxes 110 & 117, 76-77, and another in 109 appear to be a Strophondonta crassa (Imbrie, 1959).

Rectangles 107, 108, and 115 appear to be Aulopora coral fossils with some that had grown on a branching bryozoan.

Cornulites appear to be in boxes 60 and 61.

A blastoid in cells 62, 63 & 66 could be Heteroschisma subtruncatum.

Cell 22 is a fish tooth fossil.

Fossil in rectangle 69 is some sort of bone fossil.

Thanks to Kenny for image and preparing all those fossils. Very nice work!

Something New From The Waldron Shale

 

UPDATE (11-13-2020): I now think this fossil is a cluster of holdfasts for cystoids. See my post about this here.

Last Saturday (09-19-2020) I visited a Waldron Shale site and found a fossil I have not seen before. At first I thought it might be some sort of colonial coral. I showed it to my cousin Kenny and he thought it might be a parasite on a crinoid column. Similar to a fossil he found in 2015, on a Mississippian Period fossil. See this posting for more info. See image below of a Mississippian crinoid stem with what appear to be galls from parasitic marine worms.

One can see the similarities with the current Waldron Shale find.

He will need to prep this new find to see there is a crinoid column this fossils are attached to or part of. These shapes do look similar to galls of putative myzostomids (small marine worm) on crinoids as seen on a researchgate.net page showing an image from the book Fossil Crinoids by Hans Hess, William I. Ausich, Carlton E. Brett, and Michael J. Simms (Cambridge University Press, 1999).

Upon further Internet searching I came across the Time Scavengers blog with a 2017 post about The College of Wooster's paleontologist Mark A. Wilson. He posted an image Upper Ordovician cobble with encrusting crinoids (three volcano-like fossils). These shapes have some similarity to this fossil find has well. Could they be a cluster of small crinoid holdfasts?

Link to scan of the paper on Tremichnus by Carlton E. Brett from 1985:
http://webcentral.uc.edu/eprof/media/attachment/eprofmediafile_1303.pdf

Link to paper Phosphannulus on Paleozoic Crinoid Stems by James R. Welch 1976:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1303489

Link to chapter entitled Biotic Interactions among Recent and among Fossil Crinoids by David L. Meyer and William I. Ausich. See section on Parasitism and Table V for information about parasites that infest crinoid.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David_Meyer16/publication/283756496_Biotic_Interactions_among_Recent_and_among_Fossil_Crinoids/links/568ad15008ae1975839db6d3/Biotic-Interactions-among-Recent-and-among-Fossil-Crinoids.pdf

Link to paper entitled Host-specific pit-forming epizoans on Silurian crinoids by Carlton E. Brett. The images show mostly boring holes and not the structures with holes seen in this fossil.
https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/75404/j.1502-3931.1978.tb01229.x.pdf?sequence=1

Link to article Phylogeny of Myzostomida (Annelida) and their relationships with echinoderm hosts by Mindi M. Summers and Greg W. Rouse.
https://bmcevolbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12862-014-0170-7

Sand Worms

I have always been intrigued by scolecodonts (fossil worm jaws/teeth) ever since finding one on a Ordovician road cut back in 2009. When visiting Dr. Conkin one day I saw a jar in his study with jaws similar to fossils I had been finding. As it turns out these were modern day Nereis sand worms. Here are some images of these creatures, there was no label showing where they were found.

While watching the Smithsonian channel I saw a video on Bobbit worms whose jaws seem very similar to the scoledonts found in the Ordovician rock. See this Wikipedia entry on Eunice aphroditois.

Mississippian Age Cornulites Fossil

The white fossil appears to be a Cornulites worm tube fossil next to an unidentified brown trilobite genial spine. It was found in the Glen Dean formation.of Grayson County, Kentucky USA. The fossil dates to the Mississippian Period. Image was taken with a microscope with an approximate 4 mm field of view (FOV).

Thanks to Kenny for the image.

Palaeoconchus Worm Fossil

The fossil the blue arrow is pointing to appears to be a Palaeoconchus (aka Spirobus) worm fossil. It was found in the Glen Dean formation.of Grayson County, Kentucky USA. The fossil dates to the Mississippian Period. The worm fossils is intermixed with bryozoans (maybe Fenestella). Image was taken with a microscope with an approximate 4 mm field of view (FOV).

Learn more about this worm fossil at the Falls of the Ohio State Park web site:
http://www.fallsoftheohio.org/Fossil_Worms.html

Thanks to Kenny for the image for this blog posting.

Scalarituba missouriensis Worm Burrow Fossils

Here is a picture of fossil burrows of the Scalarituba missouriensis worm. They were found in the Rosewood Shale of Floyd County, Indiana, USA. The fossils date to the Mississippian Period.

Thanks to Kenny for the picture.

Trace Fossils from Carboniferous

Here is a picture of worm burrows. It was found in Mississippian Period rock in Floyd County, Indiana, USA.

Thanks to Kenny for the picture.

Leptaena Brachiopod with Cornulites Worm Tubes

These images are of a Leptaena waldronensis? brachiopod that has two Cornulites sp. worm tubes attached. It somewhat rare to find the Cornulites worm tubes on fossils found in the Clark County, Indiana Waldron Shale. These fossils date to the Silurian Period (425-420 million years ago).

I encountered this fossil while volunteering at Earth Discovery Day at the Falls of the Ohio State Park in Clarksville, Indiana, USA. It is a good event to help the general public to learn about fossils and minerals found on our planet. The specimen shown was found by visitor on August 24, 2013.

Waldron Shale Scolecodont Fragment

This picture is of a microfossil called a scolecondont (part of a worm jaw). It was found in the Waldron Shale of Clark County, Indiana, USA. The age is around 420 million years old which would place it in the Silurian Period.

It reminds me of a Silurian scolecodont found in Sweden called Kettnerites sp.  Also one found in New York called Nereidavus invisibilis. I have not been able to find much research on the ones found in the American Waldron Shale though.

Thanks to Kenny for the picture.

Mississippian Age Cornulites Fossil

Cornulites worm tube fossil found in the Indian Springs Formation of Crawford County, Indiana. The worm tube is located in the picture to the upper left of the blastoid. Fossil is dated to the Mississippian Period. 

Thanks to Kenny for the picture.

Cornulites proprius on a Platystoma Fossil

Pictured are several Silurian Waldron Shale fossils. It appears to be the fossilized habitat of a Cornulites proprius attached to the gastropod Platyostoma niagarense. This ensemble was found in Clark County, Indiana. While snail/worm fossil combos are found quite a bit in the Shelby County, Indiana, my experience is they are not quite as common in the more southern county of Clark in Indiana.

Fossils have not been prepped yet so I am hoping for better detail once they are cleaned.

Cornulites proprius?

Described by James Hall in 1876 as "elongate-tubular, obconical or trumpet-shaped bodies, rapidly enlarging toward the aperture, which is campanulate with the margins always imperfect." The Cornulites propius worm tube fossil is found in the Waldron Shale of Bartholomew County, Indiana. These creatures lived in the Silurian Period.

Cornulites propius illustration from Indiana Department of Geology and Natural History 11th Annual Report 1881; Plate 32 Figure 4

Nereidavus invisibilis? Scolecodont

This fossil appears to be a Nereidavus invisibilis? scolecodont found in the Silurian Waldron Shale of Clark County, Indiana, USA.  The fossil was found on top of another fossil as can be seen in the second picture.  The second fossil is a crinoid holdfast.

Thanks to Kenny for the pictures and identification.  See other possible scolecodonts found in the Waldron Shale: CLICK HERE and CLICK HERE.

Wikipedia has pictures of the modern sandworm Alitta virens (old genus name Nereis): CLICK HERE

Plate Full of Scolecodonts

Recently, I found a plate with over 8 scolecodonts embedded on its surface.  Though the specimens are quite small and a magnifier is needed to make out details, it is an amazing find.  Fossil plate found in Trimble County, Kentucky in maybe the Drake Formation.  These animals existed in the Ordovician Period.  In addition to scolecodonts there are also a few graptolites and impressions of maybe brachiopods.

Return of the Serpula

Sometimes a fossil is so nice that it needs to be revisited photographically.  This Inoceramus oyster shell fragment is covered with Serpula worm tubes.  The fossils were found in the Eagleford Group, Kamp Ranch Formation in Dallas County, Texas.  These marine creatures existed in the Cretaceous Period.

Last presented on the blog on December 4, 2009 (CLICK HERE).  Thanks to Herb for loaning me the fossil to photograph.

Kope Formation Cornulites

Worm tube fossil called Cornulites.  Existed in the Ordovician Period.  Fossil found in the Kope Formation of Carroll County, Kentucky.