RWA3006
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Post by RWA3006 on Nov 23, 2023 10:44:03 GMT -5
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Post by 1dave on Nov 23, 2023 11:36:48 GMT -5
That looks like a Thunderegg!
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RWA3006
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Post by RWA3006 on Nov 23, 2023 12:25:21 GMT -5
That looks like a Thunderegg! I noticed that also, in fact I find a fair number of coprolites that do. I think it's because the void within the specimen fills with agate much the same way as a T-egg. I've concluded that many of the voids are caused by shrinking organic matter or dung beetle activity. The turd petrifies with a cavity inside and then it fills with agate in similar fashion as many other types of nodules.
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rockbrain
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Post by rockbrain on Nov 23, 2023 14:08:27 GMT -5
That's a purdy turdy!
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RWA3006
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Post by RWA3006 on Nov 23, 2023 16:04:18 GMT -5
Have you ever walked on a pasture where the cow chips are abundant? They almost always have a shape like a flying saucer because when they fell they went splat. If you turn a dry one over it has the reverse impression of the terrain it fell upon and that surface tends to be flattened and featureless. The top will have more "character" Here's a dandy sauropod turd that probably had the same consistency of the bovines I used to raise. ![](https://res.cloudinary.com/drums6h3y/image/upload/v1700773450/kcgcvvzrifp0as1tl8gz.jpg)
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RWA3006
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Post by RWA3006 on Nov 23, 2023 16:04:59 GMT -5
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rockbrain
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Post by rockbrain on Nov 23, 2023 17:11:37 GMT -5
I was thinking of posting a pie picture but you beat me to it.
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dillonf
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Hounding and tumbling
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Post by dillonf on Nov 24, 2023 9:48:19 GMT -5
Man that is a really impressive specimen! Awesome 👍
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Nov 24, 2023 14:21:20 GMT -5
Randy, silicified coral never had that brecciated appearance. It was so rigid in it's non - petrified state it never probably never experienced shinkage. The fern roots from Texas never had shrinkage fractures either as it is also quite stable in the non-petrified form. Same goes for petrified palm wood, however palm burl and tree root cavities experienced chalcedony fills without brecciation. Whatever the climate was in ancient Texas(probably hot and in some cases dry)brecciation was common in many types of petrifications including petrified soils and clays. Or perhaps tectonic forces caused becciations, don't know. Some stones were brecciated brecciations go figure, as if they petrified in a brecciated state and some force brecciated them yet again only to refill with chalcedony again. Who knows what happened back in those days. If hot ash landed on dino poop maybe the heat of the hot ash shrunk the poop balls. Perhaps there were quarterly eruptions that the dinosaur could survive but would cover their dung fields repeatedly. Your "stream bed" photos of poop balls reveals a repeated usage of the poop zones. The foliage during the dino age was so diverse. There are barely a dozen species of palms in North America. In Texas alone collectors have found over 400 species of fossil palms. Half the petrifications I found in Texas did not even appear to be wood but some strange non-woody vascular plant species. Emphasis - lots of biological diversification back then. When the settlers first arrived in south Texas it was covered with vast forests of palms. It did not take man long to remove the useless palms and convert it to grazing lands. It is now common to find 1-5-10-larger acre monoculture patches of opuntia cactus 6 feet tall. Let's just say it was enough heavy cactus to feed plenty of dinosaurs. It is bizarre to see so much heavy vascular plant mass in one place. I considered what it would be like to bulldoze to a pile an acre of solid opuntia cactus 6 feet tall being that they are full of pasty liquid. It is easy to grow cherry tomatoes here that produce so many tomatoes that the tractor loses all traction when plowing them down. Crushed tomatoes can generate a lot of slick paste. Just saying the dino's diet could have been real diverse.
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RWA3006
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Post by RWA3006 on Nov 25, 2023 10:43:22 GMT -5
jamesp Consider that the Carboniferous Period spanned about 60 million years, long before the dinosaurs appeared it only makes sense that the plant kingdom got a heck of a head start in diversification. I've never forgotten the interesting comments you made early in this thread about horse tails. It's interesting to think that in the Jurassic this Utah area was much closer to equatorial latitudes and was probably warmer and wetter which would have enhanced plant life. I've been pulling these coprolites out of the Morrison Formation, Brushy Basin member which is somewhere around 148 mya which is just a dozen or so million years before the angiosperms really took off. Today flowering plants represent about 90 percent of current plant life on land but just because we have the angiosperm diversity today that my coprolite producing dinos didn't does not mean they didn't have great variety of plant life. You pointed out a vast variety of gymnosperms that lived in that time that are now extinct. It's also interesting to note that at the time the angiosperms started to thrive the dinosaurs seemed to have mirrored their progress. This went on from the emergence of flowering plants around 135 mya until the Chicxulub event at 66 mya. That must have been a 70 million year golden age where dinosaur and plant life enjoyed a turbocharged diversification. After that the mammals and angiosperms were able to thrive to higher levels but the poor dinosaurs didn't make it except for some bird-like versions.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Nov 26, 2023 6:58:39 GMT -5
Are there other fossils and particularly fossil sauropod bones in the the area where the coprolites are found ? It would seem likely. An article described how vertebrae were the most common bones found which makes sense considering how incredibly long their tails and giraffe like necks are. Considering horsetail must have grown at least 50 feet tall they needed a long reach for reaching tree foliage. Some of them are massive creatures. There had to be a serious food source and serious loads of large diameter waste.
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RWA3006
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Post by RWA3006 on Nov 26, 2023 10:42:18 GMT -5
Are there other fossils and particularly fossil sauropod bones in the the area where the coprolites are found ? Yes, fossilized sauropod bones are abundant in the layer coprolites are found. The layer itself is packed with carboniferous material that indicates high volumes of plant material. This layer is concurrent with a lot of alluvial sands, gravels, and rocks.
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Post by parfive on Nov 26, 2023 15:25:15 GMT -5
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RWA3006
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Post by RWA3006 on Nov 26, 2023 16:14:20 GMT -5
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RWA3006
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Post by RWA3006 on Nov 28, 2023 8:01:57 GMT -5
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RWA3006
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Post by RWA3006 on Dec 1, 2023 7:55:20 GMT -5
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Post by RickB on Dec 4, 2023 20:42:22 GMT -5
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RWA3006
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Post by RWA3006 on Dec 5, 2023 8:12:37 GMT -5
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Post by RickB on Dec 5, 2023 10:48:23 GMT -5
Looks like flat bread pizza ![(drool)](//storage.proboards.com/1258779/images/qhaHJVqAnUhMVJoyMzub.gif)
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Post by 1dave on Dec 5, 2023 12:25:09 GMT -5
Very Interesting! Quartz crystals (Purple) on the bottom? ![1](https://res.cloudinary.com/crosbj/image/upload/v1701797012/Critters/Dino/DinoPoo/2_cowoco.png)
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