Red Hill Fossil

A while back my friend Herb gave me a piece of matrix from Red Hill roadcut in Clinton County, Pennsylvania, USA. After leaving the sample outside for weeks it began to break apart. In one of the pieces, I found this impression. It looks to me to be some sort of brachiopod with radial lines (costae or plicae) and a light blue layer with maybe muscle scars on it. If it is a brachiopod it is very compressed.

Looking for more information about Red Hill locality (Duncannon Member, Catskill Formation), I consulted the Devonian Times web site. It lists the site as a Late Devonian area (Famennian Stage, 361 million years old). The area was an area that flooded due to a near by river. If this was a river, I am not sure about this fossil since I thought brachiopods were marine creatures.

Bumastus Trilobite Cephalon

 Here is a nice fossil that was embedded in quite a bit of hard Waldron Shale. My cousin using an air scribe coaxed it out into the public view after about two hours of work. The trilobite cephalon is a species of the genus Bumastus.  The limestone layer it was found in dates to the Silurian period or about 420 million years ago.

Washington State Ghost Shrimp Fossil Claws

These two images are what I think are Callianopsis clallamensis shrimp fossil claws. They might also be referred to as ghost or mud shrimp. Fossils are from the Washington state area and could be from either the Lincoln Creek or Pysht formations. The date of the fossils is to the Oligocene epoch of the Paleogene Period. The fossils were acquired by my cousin in a trade of fossils from the Louisville Kentucky area on a recent visit to the area.

Learn more about fossils from that area of Washington state, USA as this nice crab fossil web site: www.fossilcrabs.com

Thanks to Teri for the pictures.