# Cool fossil



## myersdiggers1998 (Apr 26, 2013)

I found this fossil about 5 years ago along the black river here in watertown.


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## RED Matthews (Apr 26, 2013)

Well it is neat.  I never found anything like that and would like to know more about it, or what it was.  I guess every one else is in the same fog I am.  Thanks, but please tell us more.  
 RED Matthews


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## epackage (Apr 26, 2013)

Very cool piece Gordon....


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## myersdiggers1998 (Apr 26, 2013)

RED, I REALLY DONT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THESE ANIMALS. ALL I KNOW IS THAT MY AREA WAS ONCE AN INLAND SEA.


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## RICKJJ59W (Apr 26, 2013)

Remember when we were fishing along the Black River and saw those huge ones in the rock bank. I wanted to cut one out.


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## Steve/sewell (Apr 26, 2013)

Great Fossil!!! Gordon


> ORIGINAL:  myersdiggers1998
> 
> RED, I REALLY DONT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THESE ANIMALS. ALL I KNOW IS THAT MY AREA WAS ONCE AN INLAND SEA.


 So was Sewell New Jersey Gordon under water, My hometown is the largest Dinosaur and fossil mine in the world right now just 2500 feet from my house. You should see the items they are pulling out of there weekly. I heard last week another T-Rex Jaw was found that is astounding.  I posted about this a while back in the fall of 2012........ Here is the lead Scientist Ken Lacovaraof Drexil University in charge of the whole Inversand site project for the State of New Jersey.  Sewell New Jersey, Global importance the gentleman says in the video along with calling it a world heritage site, who would have thought.[8|]   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tcf0fs65iHQ


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## myersdiggers1998 (Apr 27, 2013)

WOW! STEVE ,thats so cool to have that at your door step , I would volunteer to help out there with digs, a dream come true.


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## frozenmonkeyface (Apr 28, 2013)

Cool find Myers!!! Fossils, to me, are always cool, no matter what they are. Half of the time I have no idea. haha

 That is REALLY cool Steve!!! I would be out there watching them every chance I got, if they allowed it! haha


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## Plumbata (Apr 29, 2013)

Hey Gordon, that fossil you found is great, I really don't see stuff like that often around here. I believe that the bottom ribbed trumpet-shaped shell of an organism was that of the precursor of the nautilus (in form); the ammonoid. Most ammonites have the classic circular coiled form, but there were heteromorphic varieties with relatively straight shells (as if the coil was unrolled and extended). I imagine that this adaptation served some evolutionary benefit; perhaps they were more hydrodynamic and able to flee from danger more quickly? The other fossils may be another similar variety of ammonite, but with the shells having a relatively smooth versus ribbed construction.

 These cephalopod fossils are more interesting than your standard coral fragments or crinoid stems, as they were quite advanced and intelligent creatures. Thanks for sharing, and if there are nicely preserved larger examples that could be chipped-out, I'd be collecting myself an example or two if I were in the area. Thanks for sharing your find!


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## myersdiggers1998 (Apr 30, 2013)

I have a whole box full plummy . When I was a kid I had a laundry basket full . Believe it or not my prized fossil was a mini dinosaur with feathers . I wouldnt clean my room and my parents took the whole thing to the dump.So sad ,considering how rare dino birds are , I would be rich im a thinkin.[]


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## myersdiggers1998 (Apr 30, 2013)

Here is a couple more.


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## myersdiggers1998 (Apr 30, 2013)

2


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## myersdiggers1998 (Apr 30, 2013)

ok , a few more.


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## myersdiggers1998 (Apr 30, 2013)

1


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## myersdiggers1998 (Apr 30, 2013)

This one is what I believe is a dino. egg , complete with embryo.


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## myersdiggers1998 (Apr 30, 2013)

last one


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## Steve/sewell (Apr 30, 2013)

There great Gordon thanks for sharing them. Finding the egg is like digging a Booz bottle!!  Down my way they took something large out of Inversand mine today. The local news stations were there. I haven't figured out yet exactly what it may have been. Later I spoke to a cop friend who was there to escort the hauler they used to get the find out of pit over to Drexel University in Philadelphia 15 miles away. He said it was large over twenty feet in length from what he could tell from a distance of about 1oo feet away . He also said it took over two hours to get it into the enclosed hauler.


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## epackage (Apr 30, 2013)

Time to change the name from Watertown to Fossiltown Gordon...


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## LC (Apr 30, 2013)

The long segmented fossils look like cephlapods . One of the others a snail . Not sure about one of them .


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## frozenmonkeyface (May 1, 2013)

Too cool! Thanks for sharing!


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## j.dinets (May 1, 2013)

Yes, from what I can see, the majority of the pictures are Nautiloids, ie: cephalopods. The one pictured towards the end appears to be a coiled cephalopod. Cephalopods continued on to this day in the form of the Chambered, and the Paper Nautilus. The segment lines represent the growth/chamber lines. The other photos appear to be brachiopods, the one in the group picture with the "butterfly wings" appears to be Mucrospirifer. as to the others I could guess but would proably be wrong as there are over 3,000 known types.  I wish the area I am in had the wealth of fossils you are finding. My area was coverd by the Silurian Sea, but is mostly unavailable. Good luck in your collecting both fossils, and bottles.


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## Plumbata (May 1, 2013)

Dang, nice stuff! And man I wish you didn't mention the loss of the dino, reading that made me slightly ill, lol. It may, however, provide some excitement for the archaeologists of the future when they get around to digging our landfills!

 Over the years I've collected a whole bunch of fossils; mostly random items in creeks that cut through thick layers of glacially deposited cobbles, but along the Kickapoo Creek in Peoria there are striking cliff/rock faces with a fascinating sedimentary layer of black shale directly above a coal seam (and below massive layers of sandstone). In this late carboniferous shale (or early Permian, hard to say because I've searched but haven't found any paleontological info regarding this specific deposit), which splits open in thin sheets like pages in a book, are a fascinating range of well-preserved fossils, though it takes plenty of patience to isolate and extract the fossiliferous zones and locate the interesting specimens. In addition to unusual brachiopods I haven't seen in limestone formations, I've found an ammonite and the truly fascinating fossils of proto-sharks, which were way more advanced than most other organisms around at the time. I found a splendid tooth from the Agassizodus corrugatus "crusher shark" in this shale, and the majority of a Listracanthus, albeit rather disarticulated. In the shale one finds the singular shed denticles from the listracanthus shark (they look like fins or feathers, and can be up to 3 inches in length or more) but the assemblage of hundreds upon hundreds plus "bony" features I found was certainly a rather intact though young example, as the denticles were particularly small.

 As far as I know, these shark fossils haven't been documented as being present in the strata underlying Peoria county. Just as we can discover unknown (forgotten) bottles or other historic relics through a bit of legwork, so too can we come across far more ancient knowledge. Makes life interesting.


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## myersdiggers1998 (May 1, 2013)

yes it does plummy , thats why
 im a multi diverse collector, coins , rocks , bottles , books , lps , toys , tinware , anything I like that catches my eye.


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## MuddyMO (May 2, 2013)

Those are too cool! Definitely like those slender amonites. I think the Dino egg may actually be a whale's eardrum, looks like the ones I've found before.


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