Fossil Fireplace

Every so often I visit a local retired geology professor to chat about fossils. He has a unique fireplace in his study that was mortared together with various fossils. Here are few pictures of some of the fossil embedded in the fireplace. All the images were taken with a Motorola Moto X smartphone.

I think the first image might be a model of a charophyte or some sort of Astylospongia fossil. Next is some sort of model of a foraminifera.

The next two images are of colonial coral fossils.

Last is some sort of pelecypod fossil.

A Pentamerus Fossil Cluster

Here is a picture of the internal molds of a group of Silurian Pentamerus brachiopod fossils. It was found in Bullitt County, Kentucky.  There appears to be at least 8 specimens and the imprint of sort of horn coral.

Merry Fossil Christmas

Here is my Christmas image for 2013 created with fossils found in the Waldron Shale of Indiana. They date back about 420 million years (Silurian Period).

The body of the tree is a Trimerus trilobite with the trunk created with the stem of Eucalyptocrinus crinoid stem fossil. The ornaments are either the Caryocrinites cystoid or Astylospongia sponge fossils. The star at the top is a group of Stegerhynchus brachiopods. All the fossil images were recolored in Photoshop for a more Christmas like theme.

Hope everyone has a safe holiday season and a productive 2014 new year!

Thanks to Kenny for the idea about using the Waldron fossils for this year theme. I usually select a horn coral fossil for the tree body but a trilobite has a nice tree shape to it.