Diplazites unita Fern Fossil

 

Above is an image of a tree fern frond plant fossil called Diplazites unita (Brongniart, 1822) Cleal, 2015. This plant fossil dates to the Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) Period between 354 and 290 million years ago. It was found Mazon Creek, Illinois, USA. Like most fossils found at this locality, it was inside a nodule. The layer to fossil was found is the Francis Creek Shale.

The fossil was on display in the Evolving Planet section of The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago Illinois, USA as of August 2020. Accession number is PP1015. They have quite an extensive collection of Mazon Creek fossils at the exhibit.

The Field Museum produced a visual PDF of some of the fossils found at Mazon Creek. It can be found at this link:

https://fieldguides.fieldmuseum.org/sites/default/files/rapid-color-guides-pdfs/534_usa-age_fossils.pdf

References:

Brongniart, A. (1822): Sur la classification et la distribution des végétaux fossiles  ‒ Mémoires du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, 8

Cleal, C. J. (2015): The generic taxonomy of Pennsylvanian age marattialean fern frond adpressions. ‒ Palaeontographica, Abteilung B, 292: 1–21. 

Mazon Creek Calamites Plant Fossil

 

Above is an image of a horsetail trunk plant fossil called Calamites sp. This plant fossil dates to the Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) Period (354-290 mya). It was found Mazon Creek,  Illinois, USA. The layer fossils are found is in Francis Creek Shale.

The fossil was on display in the Evolving Planet section of The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago Illinois, USA as of August 2020. Accession number is UP2561. They have quite an extensive collection of Mazon Creek fossils at the exhibit.

The Field Museum produced a visual PDF of some of the fossils found at Mazon Creek. It can be found at this link:

https://fieldguides.fieldmuseum.org/sites/default/files/rapid-color-guides-pdfs/534_usa-age_fossils.pdf

Mazon Creek Collections Database at Illinois State Museum

http://www.museum.state.il.us/databases/geology/mazoncreek/graphical/index.php

Paraconularia Fossil From Indiana

 

This picture is of  what I think is a Paraconularia missouriensis? (Swallow, 1860) fossil. It existed in the Mississippian Period. The fossil was found in Carwood Formation of Washington County, Indiana USA. Thanks to Kenny for the picture. Conulariida are usually rare so I am not sure how common they are in this locality. Also it is a mystery as what exactly these extinct creatures looked like, are they a type of jellyfish?

UPDATE (2020-10-18): So I changed the name on this fossil, I think this is a Paraconularia missouriensis (Swallow, 1860) which is found in this Indiana county. The ridges are alternating when matching up at the midline thus a Paraconularia (Sinclair, 1940). I originally posted it as being Conularia (Miller, 1818). See this 2016 posting:

https://louisvillefossils.blogspot.com/2016/06/paraconularia-missouriensis-fossil.html

Learn more about this type of fossil at Dr. Mark Wilson's posting on the Wooster Geologist site:

https://woostergeologists.scotblogs.wooster.edu/2017/04/14/wooster%e2%80%99s-fossil-of-the-week-a-conulariid-lower-carboniferous-of-indiana/

A note about Conularia, it was originally shown (see above) on plate XX figure 7 in The History of Rutherglen and East-Kilbride by David Ure (1749-1798), Glasgow:Printed by David Niven 1793. The specimen was not named but the author writes this on pages 330-331. "The clafs to which the curious foffil, fig. 7. pl. XX. originally beloned, is not fo far as I know, determined. The fpecimens are in cafts of iron-ftone, fometimes found incolfed in iron-ftone like a nucleus ; at other times found among till along with marin fhells, &c. Specimens are very rare." Note their typesetting back this strange to me. It looks like the the substitute lowercase f for lowercase s on some words. Find a scan of the book at: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_History_of_Rutherglen_and_East_Kilbr/0jgtAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

References:

Miller, Hugh 1818. The Mineral Conchology of Great Britain by James Sowerby, Volume III, p. 108 

Sinclair, G.W. 1940. A discussion of the genus Metaconularia with descriptions of new species. Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, 34:101-121

Sinclair, G. W. 1952. A classification of the Conulariida. Fieldiana Geology, 10:135–145. 

Swallow, G. C. 1860. Descriptions of new fossils from the Carboniferous and Devonian rocks of Missouri. Academy of Sciences of Saint Louis, Transactions, 1:635–660.