Dictyonema Graptolite

Dictyonema sp. graptolite fossil found in the Waldron Shale of Clark County, Indiana.  Fossil is from the Silurian Period.

Graptolites

All the pictures in this post are from the same plate.  The first two are of the top and bottom of that plate.  Fossils shown on the plate appear to be graptolites (colonial Paleozoic plankton).  These were found in the Kope Formation of Carroll County, Kentucky dated to the Ordovician Period.

The Fossils of Ohio book list a number of graptolite species found in the Kope Formation: Dicellograptus flexuosus, Dicranograptus nicholsoni, Climacograptus spiniferus, Geniculograptus typicalis typicalis, Geniculograptus pygmaeus, and Orthograptus quadrimucronatus.

Learn more, read Chapter 19 Phylum Hemichordata, Class Graptolithina by Stig M. Bergström in Fossils of Ohio (1996), pp.270-281.

Coalified Callixylon Wood

Devonian wood piece probably from a Callixylon log. A little different that what I normally find. It appears to have diamond shaped patterns that might represent the outer surface. They were found in New Albany Shale in Clark County, Indiana. The wood has been coalified or vitrinized by heat and pressure over time.  This fossil appears to be from the Upper Devonian Period.

This image of the specimen viewed with a microscope shows on the left pyrite mixed with the shale and a small coalified fragment showing on the right.