Devonian Spiny Snail Fossil

This image is of a partial fossil of a spiny Platyceras dumosum (Conrad, 1840) gastropod fossil. Found in Louisville, Kentucky USA in the Devonian Period Jeffersonville Limestone. My cousin found this to add to maybe the 2-3 others he has found in the last year or so. He has prepped this one a little bit since finding it but the spines on it are impressive. Quite the little porcupine of the sea.

This image is from the book Kentucky Fossil Shells - A Monograph of the Fossil Shells of the Silurian and Devonian Rocks of Kentucky by Henry Nettelroth (1835-1887), 1889, Frankfort,  Kentucky, Kentucky Geological Survey, Plate XXIII, Figure 1 of the Platyceras dumosum (Conrad, 1840).

Another picture of the specimen shown earlier but more on the intact spine side.

This image is from the book Kentucky Fossil Shells - A Monograph of the Fossil Shells of the Silurian and Devonian Rocks of Kentucky by Henry Nettelroth, 1889, Frankfort,  Kentucky, Kentucky Geological Survey, Plate XXIII, Figure 2 of the Platyceras dumosum (Conrad, 1840).

He also found a negative image at a different time of another Platyceras (Conrad, 1840) again from the Jeffersonville Limestone.

Eospirifer radiatus Brachiopod

This brachiopod was found in the Waldron Shale of Clark County Indiana. It is a Silurian Period brachiopod that appears to be an Eospirifer radiatus. I used the Fossils of Ohio book pages 230-231 to get this identification.  The  book describes it as being from the Niagaran Series which is synonymous with the Waldron Shale.  The brachiopod is not fully intact with one side partial broken off revealing solid shale and calcite crystals.  Its dimensions are 3.5 cm long and 3.3 cm wide.  The radial lines are fine and very tightly spaced.  The specimen needs to be cleaned of residual matrix.

WOW!  Check out this Estonian Museum specimen database of an Eospirifer: http://sarv.gi.ee/specimen.php?id=56117 Now this is an impressive museum collections database with a sweet interface.  They have 100 Kentucky specimens including three holotypes of a stromatoporoid and 98 Indiana specimens As of this writing the database has 142802 entries with 15060 images.

Different views of the same specimen found in Clark County, Indiana.

The bottom image is from page 231 of the Fossils of Ohio (Bulletin 70, Rodney M. Feldmann Editor, State of Ohio, Department of Natural Resources, Division of Geological Survey, Columbus Ohio 1986) figure 10-12 of specimen from Wenlock Limestone, Dudley, West Midlands, England.

Also check out the nice collection of Eospirifers at the Indiana State Museum on-line database.

Bordenia knappi

A horn coral named after William Borden whom Borden, Indiana was also named.  Mr. Borden made a fortune mining silver in Colorado in the late 1800s and returned to Indiana.  His geology collection became very large and after his death transferred to the Field Museum in Chicago.  He might be best known for creating the Borden Institute and Museum to help educate youth in the southern Indiana area.

This horn coral is actually two clustered together but 90 degrees out of phase.  It is called Bordenia knappi (Hall, 1882) and found in the Speed Member of North Vernon Limestone.  It was found in Clark County, Indiana, USA and the coral existed in the Middle Devonian Period (Eifelian).

The species was named by Dr. James Hall in the 35th Annual Report of the State of New York, page 438 in 1884. It was named in honor of Professor Hall's friend long time fossil hunter Dr. James Knapp of Louisville, Kentucky, USA.

The genus Bordenia was named by long time fossil collector from New Albany, Indiana, USA George K. Greene in 1903 in Contributions to Indiana Palaeontology Volume I, page 99, plates 31 figures 4-11. He named it for William Borden who he later sold his collection to.