Posts treating: "Panther Mountain formation"
Friday, 19 June 2015
On a recent stop at one of my favorite Mahantango formation collecting spots, I came across this hash plate. It's presumably a record of a storm event which is why there is a diversity of fossil species and why they are jumbled together. The stippled bar shape in this photo is likely a segment from the exoskeleton of the trilobite Dipleura. It is surrounded by impressions of a Spirifirid and some Chonetid brachiopods.Here is the impression of a crinoid column segment. The five fold symmetry [...]
One site that I like to collect at is most easily accessible in the spring since the undergrowth has not yet leafed out. It's an old quarry, which exposes the Montebello sandstone member of the Mahantango formation, that is many decades abandoned and yet one can still find some neat fossils there with a little searching. These three pelecypod shells came from one such collecting trip in April.Cornellites flabella - Can easily be identified by the strong radial ribs and high angle of the body of [...]
Since the fossils preserved in the Mahantango formation are often just molds or casts of the original shell, it can be difficult sometimes to try and ID what you have found. The specimen below is something I really have to think about. The shape tells me its a Strophomenid type brachiopod. The faint radial ribs are very fine and resemble a genera called Douvillina (like this one from the Centerfield mbr. of the Ludlowville formation in New York). I'm fairly confident that this fossil is a [...]
At the borrow pit near Cole Hill, NY parts of the trilobite Dipleura dekayi are fairly common. Isolated Cephalons and Pygidiums are most common but occasionally whole specimens can be found. Here is a large piece of mudstone with a well preserved Dipleura cephalon. It is half buried in the rock still but the upturned "scoop" like part is intact. I have yet to find a specimen, either whole or as an isolated cephalon, with the eyes intact. They rise up on short stalks and break off easily when [...]
Once a hard shelled animal dies it's shell often lies around on top of the muddy bottom until it gets buried. While it is exposed it provides a hard surface for many other encrusting animals that otherwise would not be able to establish themselves. Today I have two examples of trace fossils that were left on the interior surfaces of pelecypod shells from the Devonian aged Panther Mountain formation in NY.First up is this shell which may be an Actinodesma erectum or another species. It's hard to [...]
I found this Camarotoechia sappho brachiopod at the Cole Hill Rd. locality in Madison County, NY. It comes from the Panther Mountain formation (Devonian, Givetian stage). I kept this specimen because it is a nice internal mold of the species whereas many of the other available specimens were just impressions in the rock and clustered tightly together. It's not perfect, however, there is a chip missing off the posterior that took the beak with it. Still it gives me a good representative specimen [...]
This large steinkern, or cast, fossil is a pelecypod that I found at the Cole Hill locality in Madison County, NY. I've been reviewing some resources like "The Paleontology of New York" (James Hall, 1884) and "A field Guide to the Devonian Fossils of New York" (Karl Wilson, 2014) and I think that this fossil is of a Actinodesma erectum. It's a large, oval shaped steinkern with the body vertically aligned (or erect which is where it gets it name) which is unlike many other genera that are [...]
I broke this fossil while trying to hand trim some of the excess rock from around it but it glued together pretty well. It's a Paracyclas rugosa from the Panther Mountain formation (Devonian, Givetian) at Cole Hill in Madison County, NY. Paracyclas rugosa is a small pelecypod that is nearly circular in outline and sometimes can be confused with a terebratulid brachiopod.I've posted several examples of this genera before from the Silica Shale, Mahantango Formation, Arkona Formation, [...]
This rock is full of fossils but the one that made me keep it was the impression of a Cornellites fasiculata pelecypod. The detail of the mold is really nice but there is a little "window" in the mold that shows evidence of an encrusting bryozoan that had colonized the shell.This is the whole rock with the impression near the bottom. The rounded object just above it (and casting the shadow) is the pygidium of a Dipleura dekayi trilobite.When you look into the shadowed area you can see the [...]
This is a pretty decent gastropod specimen from the Panther Mountain formation (Devonian, Givetian stage) at Cole Hill, NY. It's a Bembexia sulcomarginata and retains a little of the original shell texture. The curved lines that are perpendicular to the shell spiral are key to identifying this species. Despite the presence of the shell texture, this is still considered a steinkern (or cast) of the specimen. It has a nice three dimensional shape and is missing just the tip of the spiral.I've [...]
The pectin like pelecypods of the Devonian can be beautiful with their regular concentric ornamentation highlighted by radial ribs and "wings" along the hinge line. The fossil below is one that I do not recognize but I think I found a name for it while perusing the "Field Guide to the Devonian Fossils of New York" by Karl A. Wilson, 2014, Paleontological Research Institution.On page 148-149 is a pelecypod called Lyriopecten orbiculatus whose description is "Roughly circular shell with [...]
These next two specimens are Cypricardella tenuistriata pelecypod fossils. Both have the typical ovate shaped shell with a squared off posterior margin. The fact that the growth lines are very fine and not terribly distinct or raised eliminates the species C. bellistriata from contention.Both fossils came from a roadside quarry on Cole Hill Rd. in Madison County, NY and come from the Panther Mountain formation (Devonian, Givetian stage) but the rock type is very similar to portions of the [...]
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