This is the "Fossil Friday" post #116. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to [email protected]. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world!
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We have some Silurian fossils from southern Indiana for Fossil Friday this week. Back on May 27th, 2022, ESCONI held a field trip at the St. Paul Quarry in St. Paul, IN., and for the Throwback Thursday that week, we looked back at a field trip to that quarry in 1990. ESCONI has a long tradition of visiting this locality. Up until a few years ago, we would schedule both a spring and fall trip each year.
The Waldron Shale crops out or is exposed in quarries in a band fro east-central Indian to western Tennessee. Stratigraphically, it is Wenlockian (North American Lockport Stage) or upper Niagaran Series of North America. The shale is overlain by the Louisville Limestone and underlain by the Laurel Limestone. It is these two limestone units that are quarried exposing the Waldron Shale. The Waldron Shale consists of, on average, 2-3 meters of fossiliferous blue-gray calcareous shale. The Waldron Shale fauna lived in a shallow marine platform (Wabash Platform) situated between 10-20 degrees south of the paleoequator. Brachiopods, corals, trilobites, crinoids, and gastropods are particularly diverse and abundant in the Waldron Shale.
The amazing fossils shown here were collected from the Waldon shale. Some come from the St. Paul Quarry in St. Paul, IN. They were collected by ESCONI Co-Field Trip Chairman John Catalani over quite a few years. Some of these specimens are both rare and the very best you will ever see... The delicate Eucalyptocrinites crinoid calyxes are absolutely stunning! Thanks for sharing, John!
Caryocrinites persculptus - Cystoid
Decaschisma pulchellum - Blastoid
Astylospongia praemorsa
Dawsonoceras amycus
Periechocrinites whitfieldi
Lyriocrinus melissa
Eucalyptocrinites elrodi
Eucalyptocrinites holdfast
Eucalyptocrinites crassus
