This is part of a crinoid mass mortality layer found on Buffalo Creek in 1996. Becky and Zeke and I dragged the big slab of hardened shale all the way back to California by way of Chicago, Duluth, Rapid City, Moab, Sedona and LA. This rock has gotten around!
Crinoids still survive in some parts of the world — at least those parts that are under seawater. The little cylinders you see here are sections of crinoid stalks, which elevated the feeding structures above the ocean floor, presumably helping to access minor currents more effectively and increasing the edible plankton to inedible silt ratio a bit by getting the feathery feeding arms away from the mud. Not all crinoids were (or are) stalked: “feather stars” are examples of non-stalked living crinoids.
During the middle Devonian, which is when this rock came from, crinoids were important reef-building organisms. This rock may be a section of one of said reeves. I’m not expert enough to tell.
Fun fact! The crinoid is also the Missouri State Fossil.
Very cool! I’m all in favor of Fossil Fridays! And didn’t know ANY states had “state fossils”...what about our home state, Chris?
Always good to read about fossils. Maybe next week it’ll be gastropods?
Eurypterus remipes, a 420 million year-old eurypterid, was adopted as the New York State fossil in 1984. Eurypterids are extinct, distant relatives of the horseshoe crab.
This is lifted almost verbatim from http://www.dos.state.ny.us/kidsroom/nysfacts/stfacts.html .
You know, I thought for sure Craig was gonna be quickest on the draw with the eurypterid. Good work, Robinson.
California’s state fossil is the Smilodon, but I’m going to have to ask Carl’s help for a picture of one of those.
Illinois’s state fossil is a particularly good choice — the Tully monster, Tullimonstrum gregarium.
Here we go: statefossils.com.
I thought about it.