Imitoceras rotatorium Goniatite

This picture is of a goniatite on display at the Indiana State Museum. It is called Imitoceras rotatorium and labeled as being from the Rockford Limestone (Jackson County, Indiana). According to the Indiana Geological Survey website, this limestone layer was first referenced by Owen and Norwood in 1847 as "Goniatite limestone of Rockford". The website decribes the limestone as " typically gray, fine grained, argillaceous, ferruginous, and sparingly fossiliferous. It has a characteristic green mottling, weathers to a rusty brown, and is argillaceous or dolomitic in places, particularly in the upper part to the north. Echinodermal debris and other fossils, such as the cephalopods, are concentrated in places."

The Indiana Geological Survey also reports that the Rockford Limestone in different parts correlates to the Chouteau Limestone (Mississippi Valley), Meppen Formation (Illinois), Burlington Limestone and Fern Glen Formation.  The Rockford Limestone is above the New Albany Shale but below the New Providence Shale.

A paper in the Journal of Paleontology from July 1942 entitled, A Goniatite from the Mississippian Fern Glen Formation of Illinois by A.K. Miller and Courtney Werner, says the genus in the past as been referred to as Aganides (by de Montfort in 1808), Brancoceras (by Hyatt in 1884), and finally Imitoceras (by Schindewolf in 1923).

This fossil is from the Mississippian Period.

Platycrinites saffordi Crinoid

This fossil is one of the famous Crawfordsville, Indiana crinoids called Platycrinites saffordi.  The fossil is located in a slab on display at the Indiana State Museum in Indianapolis, Indiana. This creature existed in the Borden Group's gray siltstone that is part of the Edwardsville Formation.  Early to Middle Mississippian Period is the time period this fossil is from. View another Platycrinites crinoid on the Indiana State Museum website.

A natural science history professor at Wabash College named Edmund O. Hovey first documented these fossils in 1836.  Dr. James Hall of New York was given some of the specimens that were found.  In the 1870s through early 1900s, collectors quarried these crinoids and sent them to museums in Paris, Berlin, and London.  At one point it was thought that colonies of the crinoids existed in the area of Crawsfordsville but it is now believed the remains washed into the area from elsewhere.  Source material gathered from the book Roadside Geology of Indiana by Mark J. Camp and Graham T. Richardson (page 178).

Large slab of crinoids from Crawsfordville on display at Indiana State Museum.  The number of hours to prepare that slab must be huge!  Such a great diversity of species to be seen in one grouping.

Remarkable Creatures - Mary Anning

This evening while driving home from grocery shopping I heard an interesting story on National Public Radio's All Things Considered show.  It was an interview with writer Tracy Chevalier about her new book entitled Remarkable Creatures.  The fictional novel is about the real life English fossil hunter/dealer Mary Anning (1799-1847) from Lyme Regis, England.  While her name was not familiar, I remember coming across reference to an English woman who found dinosaur like creatures in England in the 19th century.  Apparently, what was unique in that she was a poor, uneducated woman in a field of upper-class scholars in the early 1800s.  She had to sell fossils to tourists and museums to support her family after her father died in 1810.

Portrait of Mary Anning at British Museum

Source is Wikipedia Commons

Looks like she pointing to a coiled ammonite

and it nice to see the rock hammer and 

collecting basket included in the painting 

She and her family are credited with finding the first specimen of Ichthyosaurus in 1821.  Ms Anning also found the first mostly intact Plesiosaurus in 1823.  The fossils in the Lyme Regis appear to be creatures of the Jurassic Period which she found eroding out of the cliffs by the ocean.

Drawing of Plesiosaurus macrocephalus found by Ms. Anning

Found on Wikipedia Commons from 1918 book 

The novel also involves the Mary's friend Elizabeth Philpot, who is 20 years older and moved to Lyme Regis in 1805 with her sisters.  As the author decribes in the NPR interview, "It's about fossils but it's also about friendship.  And in a way this book tries to answer that question, 'What do women do who don't find the Mr. Darcy of the Jane Austen novels?'"  A museum exists in Lyme Regis named after the Philpot sisters and documents Mary Anning's contributions to the field of paleontology.

The subject definitely caught my attention to keep me listening to the over 7 minute story on the radio.  I am not much for historical fiction though but might read it out of curiosity.  Researching these older fossil collectors has lead me to believe that maybe the "golden age" of fossil collecting was in the 1800s.  Researching Ms. Anning's story directed me into finding another recently published book, a biography entitled The Fossil Hunter: Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World by Shelley Emling.

Below is an ammonite (ancient squid like creature in a spiral shell) from Lyme Regis, England that is on display at the natural history museum in Paris, France.  These ammonite fossils were the bread and butter to a fossil dealers like Mary Anning.

Find out more:

Wikipedia entry on Mary Anning

Visit the website entry at the Lyme Regis Philpot Museum where Ms. Anning lived and sold her fossils.

San Diego Supercomputer Center - Women of Science entry on Mary Anning

University of California Berkeley entry on Mary Anning.  Apparently, they are trying to track down the fossils she prepared for museums or private collections.  See the web page for more information.

BBC page on Famous People web link

Women in the Golden Age of Geology in Britain web link