Glow In the Dark Dinosaur Coin!

The Canadian Mint is going to release a glow in the dark quarter which will mark its first ever use of this technology. They have chosen an image of the Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai dinosaur for one of the coin faces. This Late Cretaceous dinosaur was first found at Pikestone Creek, Alberta by science teacher Al Lakusta.

In a clever twist, the mint has a painted representation of the dinosaur on the quarter and when placed in the dark a photo-luminescent image of its skeleton emerges. The artwork was created by paleoartist Julius T. Csotonyi.

See the coin in its various visual forms at the Canadian Mint web site. Only 25,000 will be created and will sell for $29.95 (Canadian dollars).  VERY COOL!!!

The mint is planning three more dinosaur coins as well. It was interesting to see their commemorative coins for the 200th anniversary of the 1812 war between Canada and the United States. Looking at the U.S.Mint the only coin I could find about the War of 1812 was the Star Spangled Banner (written during the war) coins which will turn 200 years old in 2014.

Pachyrhinosaurus drawing by Nobu Tamura
From Wikipedia.org

Information for this posting sourced from:

Canadian Mint Press release April 17, 2012

Wikipedia Commons on Pachyrhinosaurus

Chinese Foraminifera Carboniferous Fossils

Here is a sample image of an Endothyra sp. foraminifera fossil from the Early Carboniferous of Guangxi region of southern China. It was found in the Shizexu Formation..  Specimen collected in the 1980s by Dr. James Conkin.

He has published an image similar to this one along with 32 other fossil images in a new paper entitled Louisville Studies in Paleontology and Stratigraphy No. 22, Reconnaissance Studies of Paleozoic Agglutinate Smaller Foraminifera from China Part 1 the Early Middle Devonian and Early Carboniferous of Guangxi Peoples Republic of China by James E. Conkin, Barbara M. Conkin, and Michael A. Popp.

It can be ordered from P.O. Box 7434, Louisville, KY 40207-0434 or e-mail louisvillefossils@gmail.com.

Cantabricanites? greenei Goniatite

This fossil is a rare find called Cantabricanites? greenei pyritized gastropod. It was found in the Coral Ridge Member of the New Providence Shale of Jefferson County, Kentucky. Dated to the Middle Mississippian Period (Osagean).