Hello,
Today I am going to talk a little bit about fossils! Mostly those found in Kentucky from the Mississippian (360-325 million years ago) and Pennsylvanian (325-290 mya) period of the Paleozoic era.
I'll start with the Pennsylvanian period, since I have the least variety of fossils from that period. The Pennsylvanian period (in this region) was characterized by swampland, and was full of huge lycopods.
The most common fossils from this period are from lycopod trees! The top two pictures are the fossilized remains of roots, and the little spots on them are attachment points for rootlets (called stigmaria.) Lycopod trees grew to enormous sizes, and you can sometimes find the roots in foot-long chunks.
The last image is part of the trunk and root of one of the trees. (It is not mine, sadly. It's on display at a local wildlife area.) It is a massive hunk of rock, and finding one would be a dream come true! I think that this is a Sigillaria, but I don't have much experience with identifying them. I could be wrong, so if anyone reading this is more experienced, feel free to chime in! :)
During the
Missippian period
this area was covered in shallow ocean and, ho buddy, you wanna talk about fossils, you can study fossils all day here. There is an extraordinary amount of both quantity and variety of fossils. In some places, the rocks look like this:
This is a bit of an extreme example, most rocks don't have this many fossils... but a lot of them do!
One of the most common fossil from this period are the little discs that you can see scattered around the rock above. Those are the stems of aquatic animals called Crinoids. You can also find their tops, but these are much less common.
The first picture is of a more complete piece of a crinoid stem, and the second is a piece of the crown. There are actually some species of crinoids alive today! The ones with stalks are called 'sea lillies,' which look super cool!
These guys are horn corals! Most of them are just a few inches long, but a few have been found that are close to a meter long. The longer ones are generally found in strata from the Denovian period. (360-410 mya)
And we've hit the image limit, but I couldn't have a fossil post about Kentucky without brachiopods! I actually probably should have started with these, since they are the state fossil! My grandparents have tons on them in a creek by their house, so these have been part of my life for about as long as I can remember. (And for anyone who is curious, you can tell a brachiopod from a clam by their shell. Clams have mirrored-imaged shells, while brachiopods have that wacky little curve you can see in the first image.)
Thanks for reading, I hope you found this informative and interesting! If you want more information about fossils in Kentucky, you can learn more here:
I will probably probably make another fossil post at some point, so stay tuned!