Funky Old Leptaena

The funky old Leptaena brachiopod fossil to paraphrase the name of Tone Loc song's Funky Cold Medina.  The Leptaena waldronensis brachiopods found in the Waldron Shale of Clark County, Indiana are quite fragile.  The glue stick needs to be used to hold the shell pieces in place when one of this size is found.

What one might not realize is how tall these creatures were in relation to other brachiopods of the time.  Also one finding them does not since most that are found are compacted or partials.  This specimen somewhat demonstrates this though part of its shell/imprint is missing.

These next images are of a different Leptaena waldronensis as one might tell with the different lighting used.  Also some of these images were not stacked with Helicon Focus software. 

Creatures existed in the Middle Silurian wild time.

Spaghetti Septa

Interesting horn coral found in the Jeffersonville Limestone of Clark County, Indiana.  Animal existed in the Middle Devonian Period.  Not sure if the septa in the center was damaged or it grew in that twisted and mangled manner.  Next image shows coral after cleaning with brush and water.

Images processed with Helicon Focus.

Horn Coral Image Processed with Helicon

Image of a horn coral that might be either a Hetrophrentis or Siphonophrentis of the Beechwood Member, North Vernon Limestone, Givetian Stage.  The new twist on these image is that they are composites of 2-5 images created by Helicon Focus 5.1. After using the software with just the default it was very quick to start producing processed images.  Right now I am using the 30 day evaluation version.  This program would be really nice to process microscope images.

The image below illustrates the difference between a DSLR camera with 50 mm macro lens image and the Helicon stacked image on the right.  One can see that the depth of field of the lens only lets the middle section of the horn coral to be in focus leaving the top and bottom views blurred.  If a series of images are taken which gradually brings sections of the object into focus, the stacking software can combine the focused sections to create a composite image. This effect can really be seen on microscope images where the specimen has lots of depth.  I do not have a fixed camera mount for the microscope so composite imaging cannot be demonstrated.

The image stacking software was produced by the Ukrainian company Helicon Soft Ltd.  From what I have seen so far, a very nice piece of software.  There is a stacking feature in Photoshop but I did not produce the results like those shown here.  Maybe I am using it incorrectly though.

Horn coral fossil is from the Middle Devonian Period and was found in Clark County, Indiana, USA.