My mother-in-law collected a cool oyster for me: She found it down in Ecuador; I think on the beach. She says it’s a fossil, but I haven’t been able to identify it at all, as either ancient or modern. Anyone know?
I have two new GigaPans of hand samples to share with you this morning… The Edinburg Formation graptolites from Mint Spring, Virginia, that I featured here back in May, can now be explored in GIGAmacro hand sample: [gigapan id=”140510″] link Students: are these colonial or solitary organisms? Benthic, nektonic, or planktonic? Does this relate to … Read more
In April, I posted some images of an odd structure from some of the fossiliferous siltstones of the Fort Valley. Some of the commenters suggested it was no fossil, but simply a very small scale version of soft-sediment deformation. Now, another “Fortian” has shown me another example, and this one is better preserved. Its lobes … Read more
Found this small, flat brachiopod fossil last fall just down the road from my place in the Fort Valley. Lovely little thing… That’s all I’ve got for you today!
Happy Friday! Here’s a view of the folded contact between the (older, lower) New Market Formation, and the (younger, upper) Lincolnshire Formation, as exposed in Staunton, Virginia: The contact has been folded, pretty intensely: The New Market Formation is massive, light-colored, and exhibits fenestral texture here. The Lincolnshire is darker, more thinly-bedded, and is chock … Read more
Last week, I mentioned some geologizing with the family in the Staunton area. The furthest west we ventured was to the road connecting Deerfield, Virginia, with West Augusta. There, the Brallier Formation is well exposed in a dramatic roadcut. Explore it for yourself in this M.A.G.I.C. GigaPan: [gigapan id=”128612″] link The Brallier is turbidites, shed … Read more
Callan and his family visit a Virginia winery that features tasty libations and chunky nautiloid fossils, both products of the same local geology…
Following a tip from a colleague, Callan finds a rich trove of fossil graptolites in Ordovician shales exposed at Mint Spring, Virginia.
A Fort Valley neighbor brought me this sample yesterday, asking me to tell her what it was. But while my brain’s pattern-recognition centers lit up when examining its “rows” of scale-like bumps, it didn’t match up with anything that I know from anywhere else here. Take a look, and click any of these images to … Read more
The community of Scientists’ Cliffs in Maryland is a private community that happens to sit on some of the most amazing fossil exposures in the Coastal Plain. The strata in question are part of the Miocene-aged (~14 Ma) Calvert Formation. The Scientists’ Cliffs outcrops are better than the more famous outcrops at Calvert Cliffs State … Read more