Tentaculites with Devonochonetes

Presented for your visual inspection, a Devonian hash plate from the Silver Creek Limestone of Clark County Indiana.  An intact Tentaculites with a lot of Devonochonetes brachiopods.

The Tentaculites is an extinct molluscs that lived in the Devonian and Silurian.  The ringed cone like shell is known as a conch.  Study of Devonian pyrite specimens from Germany alludes to the creature having tentacles.   So maybe they were like miniature shelled squids.  The next image shows the Tentaculites being about 1 cm in length.

Learn more about Tentaculitoids in the 1996 book Fossils of Ohio, Chapter 20 (pp.282-287) written by Stig M. Bergström.

This fossil is available for purchase on eBay CLICK LINK HERE.

On one side of this limestone block, is a cross section of a brachiopod with calcite crystals.

On the bottom of the plate are more remains of brachiopods plus this pygidium of a trilobite.  More that like it belonged to a Phacops.

View of top of plate:

View of bottom of plate:

View of one of the sides:

Plumulina "Mystery Animal" Fossil

This fossil appears to be a plant stalk but is in fact a marine animal.  It is called the Plumulina plumaria of the Upper Devonian Period (approximately 380 million years ago). The fossil is on display at the New York State Museum in Albany, New York.  Researchers determined this was not a plant because remnants of proteins were found and not cellulose.

The museum display shows that this animal first appeared in the Hamilton Sea.  It is similar to modern colonial soft corals and hydrozoans.

Fossil was found the Ithaca Formation of Tompkins County, New York.

Thanks to Kenny for the picture and description.

New York State Museum

The New York State Museum was founded in 1836 as part of the State Geological and Natural History Survey.  According to their web site, over three quarters of million people visit each year and over 12,000,000 specimens in their collections. 

The museum has a rich history whose foundation was formed by geologists and naturalists of the 1800s (see their History of the Museum web site for details).  My cousin Kenny recently visited this museum and gave me some pictures he took.  He commented that it is an amazing place but the fossil displays had some areas of low lighting.  That being said, the museum has announced they have the designs finished for the updated natural history section of the museum.

New York state has lots of diverse fossil exposures.  The diversity of fossils allows the museum to have some great displays.  Here are some of them.

Cohoes Mastodon - Found 1866

Eurypterus

Eospermatopteris - early land plant Devonian

Colpodexylon deatsii - early late Devonian

Climactichnites fossil tracks - Cambrian

Nephriticeras - Devonian Hamilton Sea

Coelophysis of the Late Triassic

Billion Year Old Stromatolites

Mineral Gallery