Lower Carboniferous Crinoid Calyx

Here are various pictures of Lower Carboniferous Period (Mississippian) crinoid calyx from Fort Payne Formation of Lake Cumberland, Kentucky. They appear to be Eretmocrinus crinoids but some of the fragmented pieces I am not sure.

Always a delight to find the calyx, of course finding the stem and arms attached would be a real treat but were not in Crawfordsville anymore, Toto.

 

Mississippian Period Trilobite Pygidium

Rare is a find than that of a trilobite fragment in the Mississippian Period (Lower Carboniferous - 359 to 318 million years ago) Fort Payne Formation of Lake Cumberland, Kentucky. This picture is of such a find that being a trilobite pygidium found in a gray rock shale with a lot of compressed Fenestella like bryozoan pieces.

This specimen is quite small and hard to get a detailed image of. It is about 1.5 cm wide. Looking at the article in the Journal of Paleontology, November 1966 entitled "Mississippian Trilobites from Northwestern Georgia" by Mark Rich of the University of Georgia in Athens, two trilobite genus are mentioned being in the Fort Payne Chert: Australosutra and Proetus.  I am not familiar with the Australosutra trilobite and do not see one in the Google Image database.  The Proetus trilobite has more of a bubble like hump in the middle lobe of the pygidium so it might not be that genus.  Next time I am on JSTOR I will try and look at that article and see if the images look anything like this one.

 

 

Phacops Trilobite Molts

This post shows some of the Phacops rana (Green, 1832) trilobite molts I have found over the last year. These fossilized remains were found in Clark County, Indiana or Jefferson County, Kentucky. While not museum grade finds and none are intact enrolled trilobites, they are still nice finds. The trilobite fossils most likely are from the Jeffersonville Limestone layer of the Devonian Period.  If you are a fossil collector in the United States of America, this trilobite is always nice to find.  Some of the best looking Phacops (Emmrich, 1839) trilobites are found in the Silica Shale in Ohio as opposed to these limestone fossils.

This trilobite is most interesting because of the lens of its compound eye.

Enrolled Phacops trilobite thorax pieces

 

Close up of two enrolled Phacops thorax pieces

 

Two fossils that need to have some matrix removed from the thorax segments

A selection of Phacops trilobite cephalon pieces

Close up of one of the cephalons