NevadaBill
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since January 2019
Posts: 1,332
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Post by NevadaBill on Jun 28, 2019 11:07:28 GMT -5
While stumbling around the desert in 100+ degree heat the other day, lost, and out of water on some side hill and trying to find my way back to the Jeep, I stumbled upon this little guy: I have not seen anything like it. It appears to be wood. But it looks like mud has infused the natural crevices of the wood over time and solidified as well. So, I have not attacked the rock with acids or saws to determine what it is. Actually I hope to stabilize it and put it on a bookshelf (where it sits now) as a book end. I really like it, so I won't cut or destroy it. If you <Right Click> on the image, you can Open it up in a New Tab, and it can be blown up to the real size of the photo. It almost appears fibrous? Now I have seen beautiful pictures of cabbed Palm Wood. But this is not one of them. It is a pretty plain, almost monochrome colored specimen. But I would really like to know what it might be, if anyone has a guess? Thank you!
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Post by fernwood on Jun 28, 2019 11:55:05 GMT -5
This caught my eye in your other posting. My first thought was bone, but the end does not work for that to me.
Hoping more knowledgeable people here will give you a positive ID.
Appreciate you not wanting to cut it. Just beautiful as is.
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NevadaBill
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since January 2019
Posts: 1,332
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Post by NevadaBill on Jun 28, 2019 14:28:56 GMT -5
Thank you. I think this might be a tougher one to identify. It has not been cut open yet. It does look like bone. It would be a pretty thick Dino Bone if it was. I would accept that. That would be COOL!
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Post by rockpickerforever on Jul 3, 2019 14:21:22 GMT -5
While stumbling around the desert in 100+ degree heat the other day, lost, and out of water on some side hill and trying to find my way back to the Jeep, I stumbled upon this little guy: I have not seen anything like it. It appears to be wood. But it looks like mud has infused the natural crevices of the wood over time and solidified as well. So, I have not attacked the rock with acids or saws to determine what it is. Actually I hope to stabilize it and put it on a bookshelf (where it sits now) as a book end. I really like it, so I won't cut or destroy it. If you <Right Click> on the image, you can Open it up in a New Tab, and it can be blown up to the real size of the photo. It almost appears fibrous? Now I have seen beautiful pictures of cabbed Palm Wood. But this is not one of them. It is a pretty plain, almost monochrome colored specimen. But I would really like to know what it might be, if anyone has a guess? Thank you! Hey Bill - Sorry for the delay in responding, but I had to get all my ducks in a row (take pics, do more research, etc.) before hazarding a guess. I don't believe what you have is petrified palm, but it is a fossil. From years of rock hounding in the desert, I've gotten pretty good at picking out certain things. I have a few of these I've found over the years, in a variety of colors. Most of these came from Ocotillo Wells, just to the east of Anza Borrego desert.
Pretty sure what you have found is an extinct marine Bryozoan. In general, bryozoans are sessile, modular invertebrates with ciliated tentacles that capture suspended food particles. Although they don't look it, they are most closely related to brachiopods (same feeding structures - lophophores). Can't give you an age, but the ones found here are old.
You found this stumbling around in the desert near Las Vegas? Makes sense. Many of the rocks and fossils found in the Colorado Desert Of SoCal traveled down the ancient Colorado River from points north. This I know because I have found things out there, such as a colonial rugose coral (ID'd by someone on Fossil Forum), that are older than the rocks in this area. It was out of time. I have also found colorful, highly polished petrified wood, quite unlike wood that petrified locally, which is blah brown and not highly silicified, for the most part. I compare this to glaciers transporting huge amounts of material in other parts of the country.
Typical petrified wood found in local desert.
This one is pretty grainy.
More in varying shades of blah brown and different hardnesses.
They can resemble pet wood, unless you look closely. The more silicified and harder the fossil, the more details have been preserved.
Bottom showing the pore-like structures. Guess I could've washed the dirt off first...
The inner parts of this one are highly silicified, more crumbly brown on the outside
This raised circular area on the end is very telling. Looks much like the end surface in your third pic.
This one is my favorite. About the size of a walnut.
Love the growing bands. The striations makes me think of baleen.
And the holes on the end
They come in red, too. This is a typical shape, coming to a point at one end.
This one got corrupted, lol.
It's got some fortifications.
This one is kinda wild.
It is truly amazing how many fine features can be saved during the fossilization process.
I believe when I first had these ID'd, that I had an order, family, or species name, but cannot find that info. Was hoping photos on the internet would help me dial it in, but I couldn't find anything definite. My best guess is Trepostomata (the trepostomates), an extinct bryozoan order in the class Stenolaemata. Cheilostomata is another possibility.
I hope my photos stated my case, and apologize for hijacking your thread. But I know how everyone likes pics! Jean
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NevadaBill
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since January 2019
Posts: 1,332
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Post by NevadaBill on Jul 4, 2019 10:53:29 GMT -5
Wow! rockpickerforever, what an outstanding write up. Sorry for my late reply. I think that you might have a great guess here. I also had no idea that these could be colorful or so pretty. What a great collection you have accumulated! I really appreciate you sharing your finds. You must have a trained eye to see these little guys when walking around the desert. So, Bryozoa, which is fossilized! Which likely came from the North, perhaps mid-country, and were carried downstream by the Colorado river! How interesting! A small, feeding, coral "type" of organism. Well, he is in the company of many Stromatolites in the area, who are also little biological guys that form in brackish, shallow lakes, marshes and other similar habitat. I am researching and they say that colonies of the Bryozoa can be quite large, often a foot or a yard wide. Mine is 6 inches wide. Which would be unusual for a Bryozoan. I need to research more. While it does not look like my Brachiopods (which I have found a couple of), I can tell you that the Brachiopods were only found a couple miles from where I got this guy. I am going with Bryozoa (which one I need to find out for sure). And will treasure the one I have. Thank you so much for helping me out. And also for the nice write up and sharing your fossils too!
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Post by rockpickerforever on Jul 4, 2019 22:47:21 GMT -5
You're welcome, Bill. Isn't it fun doing research? I'm glad you felt the urge to take a look, lol.
I used the search function on RTH to look for any posts about bryozoans. The name that kept coming up was inyo , a long time member who is very knowledgeable about all things fossil in the southwest. He has a personal website about fossils, here's a link to one of his threads: link
Before I knew what these were (I thought they were some kind of coral), I slabbed, cabbed and wire-wrapped one. That was back in 2010.
Thanks for the challenge! I think we'll get it figured out. Jean
ETA - Well, I forgot to ask. inyo, do you have any idea what type of bryozoans these are, or if they even are bryozoans? Any light you could shed on these would be much appreciated. I humbly bow to your superior knowledge.
Thanks in advance!
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Post by Pat on Jul 4, 2019 23:25:12 GMT -5
jamesp knows a lot about bryozoans. Modern and old. Interesting.
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Post by Pat on Jul 4, 2019 23:30:11 GMT -5
I think I’ll check up on corals and bryozoans. Both interesting. Appreciate all your research. Must do some myself!!
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Post by rockpickerforever on Jul 5, 2019 1:49:51 GMT -5
Pat , researching is addicting - but fun! You can get so involved in it, next thing you know, a couple of hours have gone by, lol. Great to learn about things we don't know, and the internet makes it so easy. Google is your friend. And the search feature on the forum is great for turning up pertinent threads from the past. I remember that jamesp was very much into bryozoans, he called them sewer monsters.
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
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Post by jamesp on Jul 7, 2019 7:04:23 GMT -5
Pat , researching is addicting - but fun! You can get so involved in it, next thing you know, a couple of hours have gone by, lol. Great to learn about things we don't know, and the internet makes it so easy. Google is your friend. And the search feature on the forum is great for turning up pertinent threads from the past. I remember that jamesp was very much into bryozoans, he called them sewer monsters. Lol, I remember that RTH bryozoan era. It was Pat that was entranced by the Bryozoan lol. I can say most of our bryozoans were small and delicate. Usually collapsed and mixed together as if settled to the ocean floor silicified in a 'death plate' fashion in mass chert. I don't remember seeing bryozoans with such long parallel corallite like structure(tubes) as in Jean's and NevadaBill's findings. Some corals have fine polyps/corallite structure. Coral leans toward hex shaped corallites... Coral is so variable and complex as are bryozoans. Tricky stuff to ID. Coral is rigid and silicifies well retaining it structure accurately. Most bryozoans are delicate as far as I know. My 10 cents. Impressed by the Orson Wells(he he) findings Jean. Don't discount this material as possible wood or other similar terrestrial organism as you find at Ocotillo. Like south Texas wash down, over 400 fossil palms ID'ed and a plethora of other bizarre terrestrial plants have been found. It appears your research quite thorough though. Interesting stuff. This one is for Pat:
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lookatthat
Cave Dweller
Whatever there is to be found.
Member since May 2017
Posts: 1,360
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Post by lookatthat on Jul 7, 2019 9:59:04 GMT -5
Those are clearly singing turtles.
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Post by rockpickerforever on Jul 7, 2019 10:40:16 GMT -5
Pat , researching is addicting - but fun! You can get so involved in it, next thing you know, a couple of hours have gone by, lol. Great to learn about things we don't know, and the internet makes it so easy. Google is your friend. And the search feature on the forum is great for turning up pertinent threads from the past. I remember that jamesp was very much into bryozoans, he called them sewer monsters. Lol, I remember that RTH bryozoan era. It was Pat that was entranced by the Bryozoan lol. I can say most of our bryozoans were small and delicate. Usually collapsed and mixed together as if settled to the ocean floor silicified in a 'death plate' fashion in mass chert. I don't remember seeing bryozoans with such long parallel corallite like structure(tubes) as in Jean's and NevadaBill 's findings. Some corals have fine polyps/corallite structure. Coral leans toward hex shaped corallites... Coral is so variable and complex as are bryozoans. Tricky stuff to ID. Coral is rigid and silicifies well retaining it structure accurately. Most bryozoans are delicate as far as I know. My 10 cents. Impressed by the Orson Wells(he he) findings Jean. Don't discount this material as possible wood or other similar terrestrial organism as you find at Ocotillo. Like south Texas wash down, over 400 fossil palms ID'ed and a plethora of other bizarre terrestrial plants have been found. It appears your research quite thorough though. Interesting stuff. This one is for Pat: Haha. Yes, James, after you showed them to her, she sort of developed a certain fondness for them. So much diversity in their forms. In the photo you posted above, it looks like a pack of happy ghouls. Or turtles caroling, I'd buy that, lol.
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
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Post by jamesp on Jul 7, 2019 10:43:07 GMT -5
Lol, I remember that RTH bryozoan era. It was Pat that was entranced by the Bryozoan lol. I can say most of our bryozoans were small and delicate. Usually collapsed and mixed together as if settled to the ocean floor silicified in a 'death plate' fashion in mass chert. I don't remember seeing bryozoans with such long parallel corallite like structure(tubes) as in Jean's and NevadaBill 's findings. Some corals have fine polyps/corallite structure. Coral leans toward hex shaped corallites... Coral is so variable and complex as are bryozoans. Tricky stuff to ID. Coral is rigid and silicifies well retaining it structure accurately. Most bryozoans are delicate as far as I know. My 10 cents. Impressed by the Orson Wells(he he) findings Jean. Don't discount this material as possible wood or other similar terrestrial organism as you find at Ocotillo. Like south Texas wash down, over 400 fossil palms ID'ed and a plethora of other bizarre terrestrial plants have been found. It appears your research quite thorough though. Interesting stuff. This one is for Pat: Haha. Yes, James, after you showed them to her, she sort of developed a certain fondness for them. So much diversity in their forms. In the photo you posted above looks lick a pack of happy ghouls. I believe Pat had modern day bryozoans wrapped up in a bag in her closet. Her fondness may have happened a while ago. You know those bryozoan ghouls are photo shopped, right ?
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Post by rockpickerforever on Jul 7, 2019 10:44:57 GMT -5
Sure, James. (No, I don't think so.)
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Post by Pat on Jul 7, 2019 18:00:10 GMT -5
jamesp. rockpickerforever. James sent polished bryozoan rocks, and I found bryozoan “bones” in a closet. Tiny and delicate. About 3 tablespoons worth. So which is older—- the bryozoan rocks , or the bryozoan bones??
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Post by rockpickerforever on Jul 7, 2019 18:13:46 GMT -5
jamesp . rockpickerforever . James sent polished bryozoan rocks, and I found bryozoan “bones” in a closet. Tiny and delicate. About 3 tablespoons worth. So which is older—- the bryozoan rocks , or the bryozoan bones?? Guessing the "bones" (or what passes for them). The rocks would take longer to form after that.
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,154
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Post by jamesp on Jul 8, 2019 2:07:01 GMT -5
jamesp . rockpickerforever . James sent polished bryozoan rocks, and I found bryozoan “bones” in a closet. Tiny and delicate. About 3 tablespoons worth. So which is older—- the bryozoan rocks , or the bryozoan bones?? Guessing the "bones" (or what passes for them). The rocks would take longer to form after that. I agree Jean. These freshwater bryozoans in local lakes around here are more like a ball of stiff jelly with no bone structure. They form colonies and most individual bryozoans are 1/2 millimeter in size. I read about them and still don't understand them.
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