Devonian Plants in the New Albany Shale

Here are some fossils given to me by a recent visitor to the Louisville area. He is known as the user Shamalama on thefossilforum.com website. If you have not had a chance you check out The Fossil Forum as an Internet source for fossil information.

I was not aware there were many fossils in the New Albany Shale layer and think of it as a time in the Middle Devonian period when the Louisville area was a dead water zone. It is thought that trees/plants drifted into this area from what is now Pennsylvania and New York.

I have found a number of papers on plants in the New Albany Shale layer when researching a question about the labeling of a plant fossil on the KYANA Geological Society website a while back.

The Structure and Classification of Four Plants From the New Albany Shale by J.H. Hoskins and A.T. Cross from American Midland Naturalist - November 1951. It says that four genera found in the black shales of the east central United States are: Callixylon, Asteroxylon, Protolepidodendron, and Reimannia.

Studies of New Albany Shale Plants. I. Stenokoleos Simplex Comb. by Charles B. Beck from American Journal of Botany - February 1960.

Studies of New Albany Shale. II. Callixylon Arnoldii by Charles B. Beck from Brittonia - October 15, 1962.

Studies of New Albany Shale. III. Chapelia Campbellii by Charles B. Beck from American Journal of Botany - September 1967.

Note splotches on some of the fossils is just water that has not yet evaporated after the rocks were cleaned. The pictures are of just two rocks each with fossil remains.

Silurian Coiled Cephalopod - Lituites marshi?

A cousin found this coiled Silurian cephalopod in the Louisville Limestone last week. I think it is about 10 cm in diameter. Wow, I only find orthoceras (straight) cephalopods and even then they are rare finds in the Silurian rock. This one was found in Louisville, Kentucky USA. This one might be a Lituites marshi (Hall) shown on Plate XXX Figure 1 in the 1889 Kentucky Fossil Shells - A Monograph of Fossil Shells of the Silurian and Devonian Rocks of Kentucky by Henry Nettelroth (1835-1887) at this University of Kentucky website (www.uky.edu/OtherOrgs/KPS/books/nettelroth/files/nettlerothplates.pdf).

Unknown Trilobite Cephalons and Pygidiums

I have a cousin who works with a jackhammer in his job sometimes. As a result he comes across a number of interesting items in the rock layers of Louisville. Luckily, his brother took some pictures of his finds and gave me the images. These trilobite cephalons and pygidiums were found in either the Louisville limestone or Jeffersonville limestone layer in Louisville, Kentucky.

Usually, I associate the brown/tan/reddish chert like rock with the Devonian period and the grey-white like rock with the Silurian period.

This first image the pygidium shows signs of being a forked posterior. A Devonian trilobite that had a forked posterior was the Coronura. The cephalon looks pointed so maybe this is a Silurian Trimerus.

Here is a closer view of the cephalon shown in the last picture. Again it might be a Trimerus.

This rock looks to be Devonian and this pygidium looks worn. The apparent point at the end of the pygidium could be a Trimerus or Dalmanites?

Pointed cephalon makes me think Trimerus.

These next three pictures are of the same fossil. It appears the cephalon is 5-7 cm wide. I wonder if this could be Trypaulites in the Jeffersonville limestone?