SPF-1 Vertebrate: Jaw fragment of a giant sloth, Eremotherium mirabile, from the Randall Parkway site, New Hanover County, NC. Age is probably Pliocene (1.5 Ma.). All the breaks appear to be fresh and most likely related to the excavation process. The one broad smooth surface would be typical of bone material from this deposit. If you use your hand lens you will not some bryozoans on the smooth surface of the bone. This indicates that the bare bone existed within the marine environment long enough for these to colonize. Scratches on that same surface are again most likely the result of the excavation process. The matrix material around the bone contains several pelecypod shells which are still aragonite, Anadara, Glycymeris and Spisula and a single jingle shell, Anomia simplex, which is calcite.
SPF-2 Mollusk: Oyster, Crassostrea virginica, from the 'Cape Fear coquina' or Neuse Formation at Snows Cut, New Hanover County, North Carolina. The shell has been moderately abraded indicated indicating post mortem transport. Several epibonts are present including a colonial gastropod (the dominate feature that looks like worm tubes), an encrusting bryozoans and the start of a coral colony. The delicate nature of these indicate that their colonization postdated the shell abrasion. They also should be considered to be in growth position. Note that most of the epibonts lie on the convex side of the shell indicating that this was the up side.
SPF-3 Brachiopod: This is the inarticulate brachiopod, Lingula sp. It was collected from the Galena Formation (middle Ordovician) at Dubuque, Iowa. Note that the shell is articulated (both halve together), is very thin and is made of phosphorite. The specimen was collected from the strata where is was vertically oriented in growth position.
SPF-4 Mollusk: Cephalopod, Isorthoceras sociale, from the lowest beds of the Maquoketa Shale (Ordovician) at Graf, Iowa. Very well preserved specimens some of which still retain their pearly luster. Modern cephalopods produce an aragonite shell. Since these appear to be calcite then the mode of fossilization is probably replacement of aragonite by calcite.
SPF-5 Coral: An example of the tabulate coral, Halysites sp., form the Hopkington Formation (Silurian). Collected from a road cut along US 151 just south of the Dubuque County Iowa airport. Common name locally or this coral is 'chain coral.' It stands in high relief on the rock sample due to the differential erosion of the silicified shell and dolomite matrix. The specimen occured in the field in growth position.
SPF-6 Brachiopod: this is the articulate brachiopod, Pentamerus oblongus, which was collected from the Hopkington Formation (Ordovician) south of Dubuque, Iowa. Here these are preserved as steinkerns. Collectively this is a colony which is in growth position. the rock matrix is dolomite.
SPF-7 Brachiopod: this is the articulate brachiopod, Platyrachella iowensis, which was collected from the Cedar Valley Formation (Devonian) at Lake Mcbride near Iowa City, Iowa. Both specimens are articulated as is the usual situation with brachiopods. The smaller specimen has suffered some post depositional crushing. It might be argued that both have some degree of abrasion.
SPF-8 Coral: This is the colonial rugose coral Hexagonaria sp collected from the Cedar Valley Formation (Devonian) at Coralville, Iowa. Preservation here is exceptional. It results mainly from permineralization but as you will see in a later lab that there is also minor silicification here also. Looking at the margins of the sample where it meets the matrix you can see that there has been some corrosion of the exterior surface prior to deposition. The sawed surface has been coated with a clear acrylic paint to enhance the texture.
SPF-9 Bryozoans: This is a specimen of a colony of bryozoans which have encrusted an oyster shell. Note that the oyster is articulated which is unusual since oysters upon death disarticulate. This may suggest that the mode of death for the oyster was the encrusting of the bryozoans which eventually became so pervasive that the oyster could no longer open and feed effectively. The bryozoans should be considered to be in growth position. Both the oyster and the bryozoans are preserved as body fossils composed of the original material secreted by the organism. The exterior of the bryozoans colony seems to be abraded and it has also been bored in at least two places.
SPF-10 Crinoids: These are the fragments of the stem of a crinoid collected from the Cedar Valley Formation (Devonian) at Iowa City, Iowa. Each specimens consists of a dozen or more ossicles or segments indication partial articulation. Preservation is by permineralization.
SPF-11 Corals: Specimens of the solitary rugose coral Zaphrentis sp. from the Cedar Valley Formation (Devonian) of Cedar Valley, Iowa. The collection exhibits varying degrees of abrasion. All are body fossils with some degree of permineralization.
SPF-12 Vertebrate: Shark tooth from the Frontier Formation (Cretaceous) of Dinosaur, Colorado. Slightly abraded but otherwise well preserved. There are also several small bone fragments is this sample but you have to use your hand lens to find them.
SPF-13 Vertebrate: Fragment of a dinosaur bone from the Morrison Formation (Jurassic) of Vernal, Utah. This has been permineralized with silica or "opalized". This is typical of how weathered dinosaur bone looks. The site was littered with hundreds of these fragments indicating the presence of one or more large bones that were breaking to small fragments upon weathering. You could collect all the fragments and fit them back together to reconstruct the bone.
SPF-14 Cephalopods: These are specimens of the belemnite Pachytenthis denssu collected from the Sundance Formation (Jurassic) of the Big Horn Basin of Wyoming. These are calcite and should be considered to be a body fossil.
SPF-15 Vertebrate: Greatly abraded and bored bone fragment probably of a marine mammal such as a whale from the Miocene of North Carolina. Note that the borings are as abraded as the bone fragment indicting that most of the abrasion followed the boring. Also feel how dense the bone is; suggestive of permineralization.
SPF-16 Coral: This is the colonial tabulate coral Favosites sp. collected from the Cedar Valley Limestone (Devonian) of Coralville, Iowa. An exceptionally well preserved specimen with all characteristic evident. Sawed surfaces have been coated with clear acrylic paint to enhance texture.
SPF-17 Trilobite: Specimen of Isotelus gigus from the Maquoketa Shale (Ordovician) of northeastern Iowa. This is a poorly preserved partial specimen in a finely crystalline limestone matrix. If you use your hand lens you will discover several other fragments.
SPF-18 Mollusk: This is a steinkern of a large gastropod from the Castle Hayne Limestone (Eocene) of Castle Hayne, North Carolina. Remember a steinkern is the lithified filling of the interior of a shell. Notice the bulbous lumps on the smaller side. These are the fillings of borings that were made into the aragonitic shell.
SPF-19 Cephalopod: Not a particularly well preserved specimen. At least you can see the septi so you know that it is not a gastropod plus the symmetry would argue for being a cephalopod also. Gut feeling says that it is from the Jurassic though I have no background information of this sample.
SPF-20 Mollusk: Gastropod which is very delicate and well preserved with some coloration still evident. This is from the Pleistocene of Florida. Note the epibonts. The little volcano like things are barnacles. The tubular structures are probably a gastropod. The grid-work structures are bryozoans. Since the epibonts coat both the exterior and interior to the same degree they probably established themselves after the death of the gastropod. There is also minor boring of the lip area of the gastropod. No sign of abrasion.
SPF-21 Mollusk and coral: Sample is predominately the Mollusk, pelecypod, Donax variabilis or the coquina shell which is still aragonite. Almost all are disarticulated. There is some abrasion but not much and some breakage but this may be due to recent processes. Note how the shells are all jumbled together with no preferred spatial orientation. The coral is still aragonite but they are much abraded and not in growth position. In fact these corals were long extinct when the coquina were living, the corals are technically lithoclasts, rock fragments, but we use the term reminae fossils here. The rock interestingly enough is a true coquina, on of the very few that I have ever encountered. The sample is from the Pleistocene outcrop at Ft. Fisher, North Carolina.
SPF-22 Mollusk: These are oysters from the Pee Dee Sandstone (Cretaceous) of New Hanover County, North Carolina. They are body fossils made of calcite and very well preserved. No significant amount of abrasion can be see. The broken edges are due to students handling the specimen over the years; it was sharp enough to cut your finger when collected. Each of the four individuals consists of only one valve as is typical of the pelecypods upon death. There is something puzzling about this sample. If it died of disease, predation or old age it would have disarticulated as it is and it would have lain on the sea bed and been colonized by epibonts which it is not. If it died by rapid burial it would be articulated which it isn't but it would have been lacking epibonts which it is; you figure!
SPF-23 Mollusk: This is the oyster Crassostrea gigantica from the Tertiary of eastern North Carolina. It is a body fossil made of calcite. The specimen is greatly abraded, in fact only about one third of the original shell remains. What remains is also bored. In life this organism would have encrusted a submarine hard ground lying in a horizontal orientation. Obviously this specimen was removed from the hard ground transported and abraded and then bored.
SPF-24 Brachiopod: Doleroides pervetus from the Platteville Formation (Ordovician) of southwestern Wisconsin. This is a very nicely preserved body fossil (calcite) of a brachiopod. Very easy to see the symmetry relationships on this specimen.
SPF-25 Mollusk: This is a scallop from the Miocene Pungo River Formation of Aurora, North Carolina. The specimen is preserved as a body fossil (calcite) and is articulated. Generally upon death these will disarticulated so this specimen may have been buried rapidly or buried alive. This is further supported by the lack of any abrasion of signs of predation. Note the symmetry of this specimen and compare it to SPF-24.
SPF-26 Mollusk: This is a body fossil (aragonite) of the pelecypod Anadara sp. from the Neuse Formation (Pleistocene) Ft. Fisher, North Carolina. Note that the specimen is only one valve hence disarticulated. The shell is moderately abraded, bored and encrusted by a coral. Look closely at the coral where it joins the shell and note that the encrusting of the coral followed the abrasion and boring of the shell. Also the coral is also abraded.
SPF-27 Coral: Silicified and partially silicified rugose corals from the Silurian of eastern Iowa. Using your hand lens look at the detail on the surfaces of most of these. The circular patterns are the result of the silicification replacement process which was not complete. The quartz nucleated in small clusters and grew outward or radially forming a star like pattern or botryoidal texture. This not a feature that was present when the coral was alive.
SPF-28 Coral: This is the modern coral Porites furcata. It is not fossilized; note the coloring and presence of fuzzy tissue. The mineral is aragonite. Use you hand lens to look at the structure of this specimen.
SPF-29 Bryozoans: Modern not fossilized. Use your hand lens and look t the structure on the surfaces and at the broken ends. Then compare this specimen to SPF-28.
SPF-30 Coral: Modern 'brain' coral Diploria sp. This specimen is not fossilized. It is made of aragonite.
SPF-31 Mollusk: Pelecypods preserved as steinkerns from the Cedar Creek Village Quarry, Little River, South Carolina. Probably Tertiary. The material making up the steinkern is callophane or phosphorite.
SPF-32 Brachiopod: This is a pentamerid brachiopod which has been preserved as a steinkern made up of quartz. It comes from the Silurian of northeastern Iowa. Note how this differs in shape or form from that of a pelecypod, SPF-31.
SPF-33 Brachiopod: Another pentamerid preserved as a steinkern. The material of the steinkern is dolomite. Sample is from the Hopkington Formation, Dubuque County, Iowa.
SPF-34 Mollusk: A specimen of a gastropod preserved as a steinkern form the Dubuque Member of the Galena Formation (Ordovician), Dubuque, Iowa. the material of the steinkern is dolomite. Look at the sample edge on to see the lack of symmetry; a coiled cephalopod would have appeared symmetrical from that view. In poorly preserved samples like this that is how you have to differentiate between the two.
SPF-35 Mollusk: Specimens of cephalopods (ammonites) from the Jurassic of Holzmaden, Germany. These are preserved as flatten impressions.
SPF-36 Mollusk: Specimen of a cephalopod from the Mowry Shale (Cretaceous) Graybull, Wyoming. Note the intricate boundaries between the various segments. The taxonomy of these is defined on the geometry of these boundries. Specimen is preserved as a combination of being in part a steinkern and in part being moldic porosity. There is also slight traces of the aragonite that the animal secreted still present.
SPF-37 Mollusk: Cross section cut through a cephalopod from the Cretaceous of western Colorado. The sawed surface is coated with clear acrylic paint to enhance the textural detail. Use your hand lens and look at this structure.
SPF-39 Echinoderm: Segments of a crinoid stem preserved as molds within a dolostone. These are individual ossicles hence the animal has completely disarticulated. Sample is from the Madison Limestone, Snowbird, Utah.
SPF-40 Echinoderm: segments of a crinoid stem that are permineralized with calcite. Partially articulated. Sample is from the Sundance Formation (Jurassic) of Dinosaur, Colorado.
SPF-41 Vertebrate: Dinosaur bone fragments that are permineralized with quartz. Sample from the Cloverly Formation (Jurassic) at the Cloverly Post Office, Wyoming.
SPF-42 Vertebrate: Fossil fish from the Green River Formation (Eocene) southwestern Wyoming. These are preserved as a combination of body fossil (bones present) and as a carbon film (organs like the eye are present). Delicate sample handle with care.
SPF-43 Plant: Bits and pieces of fossil plant material from the Pennsylvanian of Jellico, Tennessee. These are preserved as carbon films.
SPF-44 Mollusk: Gastropods preserved as molds in a core sample from the Tertiary, location unknown. Use your hand lens and explore it for what else it contains.
SPF-45 Mollusk: Oysters (gryphea) from the Mesozoic, location unknown. These are preserved as calcite body fossils. You might want to confuse these with a gastropod but the clue here to differentiate is the calcite as gastropods with very few exceptions secreted aragonite.
SPF-46 Mollusk: Mostly pelecypods that are now quartz. I am not sure of the preservation method, either direct replacement of the aragonite by quartz of the formation of a mold first the a quartz cast from the mold. The detail of the exterior is remarkable. Box also contains corals and gastropods all preserved in the same way. Sample is from the Tertiary of Georgia. This is one of the most remarkable samples that I have ever encountered.
SPF-47 Barnacles: Collection of loose disarticulated plates and individuals encrusting a scallop shell fragment, an oyster and even anothe barbacle plate. These are body fossils made of the original calcite the the animal secreted. From the Pliocene of southeastern North Carolina.
SPF-48 Unknown: Possibly vertebrate material. collected from the Maquoketa Shale (Ordovician) at Graf, Iowa. Sometimes you got to just say 'I don't know.' Never forget this.
SPF-49 Bryozoans: From the Ordovician near Lexington, Kentucky. These are preserves as calcite body fossils.
SPF-50 Brachiopods: an assortment of brachiopods from the Ordovician near Lexington, Kentucky. These are preserved as calcite body fossils.
SPF-51 Coral: This specimen of a tabulate coral is totally replaced by quartz. collected from a stream bed near an eroding outcrop of the Hopkington Formation (Silurian), Dubuque County, Iowa. Preservation here is not really good and one would be hard pressed to say much beyond the fact that this is a tabulate coral.
SPF-52 Coral: This is also a tabulate coral, a specimen of Favosites sp. from the middle Devonian of central Iowa. It is a calcite body fossil. The cavities formerly occupied by living tissue are now filled with calcite cement.
SPF-53 Coral: These are Pleistocene octocorallians from the Key Largo Limestone of south Florida. They are body fossils formed of the original aragonite that the octocorallians secreted. Note on the uncut side that there are four large holes. The largest is the remains of a pelecypod that the coral grew around and eventually totally engulfed. The other three are borings into the coral made probably by a boring mollusk of some sort. The mollusk is now absent but in two of the three you can see a flat topped filling. These are called geopetals or lithified sediment the partially filled the hole leaving a flat top surface. They tell you which way was up in the rock while it was forming.
SPF-54 Coral: These are four samples of the colonial rugose coral Hexagonaria sp. from the middle Devonian Cedar Valley Limestone of Coralville, Iowa. They grew as inverted funnels with the small pointed part attached to some hard object like another coral or a shell of some sort. There are some epibonts attached to these though they are not easily seen.
SPF-55 Mollusk: Pelecypods of the species Glycymeris sp. from the Randall Parkway Site (Pliocene) of New Hanover County, North Carolina. They are all aragonite body fossils. They are disarticulated but have very little abrasion. The largest one has some small borings on its outer margin which may have been made by a predator. All four have arc like bands normal to the ribbing. These maybe due to damage experienced during a storm.
SPF-56 Echinoderm; This is a 'flat echinoderm' more commonly called a sand dollar. It is from the Castle Hayne Limestone (Eocene) of the old Dixie Cement Quarry, Castle Hayne, North Carolina. The specimen is permineralized with calcite. Good sample but it is abraded and broken though the breakage may be a recent process related to quarrying. The elongate pinkish fossil on top of the sand dollar is a spine form another type of echinoderm, a sea urchin. It is also permineralized.
SPF-57 Bryozoans: This slab holds a number of specimens of fenestrate bryozoans. The name reflects their 'fence' like character. In life these formed fan like structures 10 cm. or more across. These are fragments of those fans but they are body fossils which still retain the original calcite.. The sample is from the Red Wall Limestone (Mississippian) of the Duchesne River valley, Duchesne County, Utah.
SPF-58 Vertebrate: This is a vertebra that probably came from a small whale. It is a body fossil and is not permineralized as most bone samples are hence it is quite light weight. the specimen is slightly abraded and broken but the breakage appears to be fresh or recent. The sample is from the Pungo Rive Formation (Miocene) Aurora, North Carolina.
SPF-59 Coral: This specimen is a rugose coral body fossil but the interesting thing is that there are three stromatoporoids growing on it. This would be a little living community which comes from the middle Devonian Cedar Valley Limestone of Coralville, Iowa.
SPF-60 Stromatoporoids: This large specimen contains principally two types of stromotoporoids; a large encrusting type and much smaller finger like ones. The sample is part of a large group of these found in growth position forming a bioherm. Also on this sample there is a segment of a crinoid stem. The sample is from the Silurian-Devonian of Virginia, near where you went or will go on your methods field trip.