fossilman
spending too much on rocks
Member since April 2007
Posts: 256
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Post by fossilman on Jun 20, 2007 20:14:54 GMT -5
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adrian65
Cave Dweller
Arch to golden memories and to great friends.
Member since February 2007
Posts: 10,777
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Post by adrian65 on Jun 20, 2007 23:12:37 GMT -5
Very nice those corals! Did you try to cut one in slabs and tumble/polish them? I think they could become nice pendants.
What's in the pic in your avatar?
Adrian
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fossilman
spending too much on rocks
Member since April 2007
Posts: 256
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Post by fossilman on Jun 21, 2007 1:20:54 GMT -5
I have tumbled them before, but they are soft, and need a vibratory tumbler for a good final polish. They make killer pendants when cabbed. My avatar is my favorite fossil species, a spiny urchin that I discovered 15 years ago.
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fossilman
spending too much on rocks
Member since April 2007
Posts: 256
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Post by fossilman on Jun 21, 2007 1:21:22 GMT -5
incidentally, those corals and the urchin occur less than 10 miles from each other
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Post by texaswoodie on Jun 21, 2007 7:18:32 GMT -5
Very nice Dan! I threw a section in my vibe with some pet wood and it actually did better than I expected. The sides didn't polish but the flat surface did. Probably need to do a batch by themselves.
Cuet
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adrian65
Cave Dweller
Arch to golden memories and to great friends.
Member since February 2007
Posts: 10,777
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Post by adrian65 on Jun 21, 2007 7:48:56 GMT -5
Fossil urchin! Wow! So all its spines were petrified! I understand why is it your favorite. Could you please share a bigger pic of it?
Adrian
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fossilman
spending too much on rocks
Member since April 2007
Posts: 256
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Post by fossilman on Jun 21, 2007 9:40:35 GMT -5
I don't have a bigger picture of that specimen, but I do have a good photo of the type specimen I collected. It's a 3 1/2 foot by 3 foot mass kill slab with 28 urchins and a perfect crinoid. It currently is in the UT-Austin museum. I'm one of the authors that described it, and I've dug and prepared thousands of these. Paleontologists like myself often go a lifetime not finding a site like this, and I probably never will find another site with the number and quality of new species (20+ new species currently and growing). This slab took 150 hours of prep work. It would have really been nice to have that game cart for this, I had to hoof it out on my back 3/4 of a mile. Here's a closeup of one of the singles. There's more photos of them in my photobucket account. s93.photobucket.com/albums/l56/danryderfossils/Archaeocidaris/and here's the mass kill slab. This is probably the finest fossil that I've ever collected and prepared.
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Post by texaswoodie on Jun 21, 2007 11:41:34 GMT -5
Wow Dan. That is spectacular!
Curt
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chassroc
Cave Dweller
Rocks are abundant when you have rocktumblinghobby pals
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Post by chassroc on Jun 21, 2007 12:02:55 GMT -5
beautiful work Fossilman...where did you find the coral? csroc
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fossilman
spending too much on rocks
Member since April 2007
Posts: 256
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Post by fossilman on Jun 21, 2007 16:02:59 GMT -5
here in TX.
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raqy
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since March 2007
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Post by raqy on Jun 21, 2007 18:35:24 GMT -5
Thats amazing!
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Post by beefjello on Jun 22, 2007 22:16:39 GMT -5
Beatiful corals.. and that mass kill slab WOW! Just incredible!!
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rollingstone
starting to spend too much on rocks
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Post by rollingstone on Jun 23, 2007 12:18:09 GMT -5
That coral is pretty nice itself, but those urchins win the prize, big time! Any speculation on what caused the mass kill/burial? -Don
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fossilman
spending too much on rocks
Member since April 2007
Posts: 256
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Post by fossilman on Jun 23, 2007 15:04:55 GMT -5
yes, we've spent close to 10 years working on the site, and there's been several Journal of Paleo papers, a doctoral paper, and at least a half dozen GSA poster sessions or tech sessions talks. And there's plenty more to come, since we've jsut found researchers who are experts to work on other individual fossil types. It's a turbidity flow (mudslide). They had to be buried alive to preserve that way, urchins of this time period (Pennsylvanian age)disintegrated within hours after death according to our research at UT, and these are still completely articulated. It's now considered one of the top 50 invertebrate fossil sites in the world, and is easily the best Paleozoic age urchin locality. There's actually 7 distinct turbidites with urchins (the most common fossil), crinoids, starfish, brittle stars, brachiopods, edrioasteroids, and common critters in a 2 foot thick zone. Each layer has its unique characteristics. This layer, though, is my favorite to quarry, since every slab this size always has urchins on it, and they are 5 - 7 1/2 inches in diameter. You should see them up close - there's details down to 1/50th of a millimeter in diameter that can be prepared out with my new and super-top-secret abrasive blasting technique. Photos simply cannot do these justice.
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fossilman
spending too much on rocks
Member since April 2007
Posts: 256
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Post by fossilman on Jun 23, 2007 15:07:49 GMT -5
oh, and to top it all off, one of the two (yes, UT has another one this size) mass kill slabs UT has preserved on fossil sea urchin coprolites. The stomach contents were squeezed out of them when they were squashed flat, and it overturned a 150 year old theory that they ate algae, since their closest living descendants ate algae on coral reefs. These were eating crinoids. That slab is the only urchin fossil ever preserved anywhere in the world with a coprolite.
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rollingstone
starting to spend too much on rocks
Member since July 2009
Posts: 236
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Post by rollingstone on Jun 23, 2007 21:47:04 GMT -5
Thanks for the excellent description, I can see why it is such a special find. -Don
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