Crosswise cells or rays are typical but often hidden components of the vascular tissue in plans. Fossil plants occur in the shale layers below the Brush Creek limestone. These sometimes preserve incredible detail, including detailed carbon films from plants living over 300 million years ago. While shale plant fossils areRead More →
Asterophyllites have been a genus of fossil plants that I have been hunting for since I started collecting fossils locally. Today I was able to recover my first specimen of one. These are the branches that come out at the nodes of the genus Calamites. While these are two separateRead More →
Cordaites and Calamites are two familiar plants in the Late Pennsylvanian fossil fauna. The two are similar as fossils, presenting as long horizontal grooves in rocks. Cordaites differs from Calamites as the latter has a termination of the groves with occasional perpendicular grooves coming from the presence of nodes. IRead More →
Recently I was able to obtain two nice examples of Lepidodendron from the Pottsville Formation in Alabama. This formation is two formations away from the Glenshaw, having the Allegheny Formation between them. Both specimens are different species, however, species for these could very well just mean they come from aRead More →
I have found very little fossilized woody material in the Late Carboniferous strata locally. It most certainly exists, I just haven’t been lucky enough to recover any. That changed yesterday with the recovery of a fossilized taproot. The specimen was found in-situ in shale immediately above the Pine Creek limestone.Read More →
Plant fossils are very common in the Glenshaw Formation. The shale preserves a multitude of plant fossil specimens, waiting to be found. Preservation can be an impression or a carbon film. These carbon films are leftover carbon from when the original organism was alive. The oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen disappearRead More →
There are plenty of shale plants to be found, in particular layers locally. Some have an abundance of ferns, stems, leaves, etc, and often you’ll fine a nice isolated piece. This is a two part post about two particularly interesting finds. One is very easy to identify, the other IRead More →
This small specimen represents four leaves of the genus Neuropteris. These were arranged on a side branch, as each stem of the species had a number of side branches of different lengths to make what is a classic fern shape. These come from a shale layer about twenty feet belowRead More →
Two examples of local fossil plant fauna, both specimens were found in Guffy Run. Calamites Calamites is common in the shale below the Brush Creek Limestone. Typically a wide, long and flat fossil, it’s difficult to find large specimens locally in-tact. This one was face up in the stream bedRead More →
Macroneuropteris is a much more rare genus than Pecopteris. However, these can be found locally in the shale below the primary limestone layer. The detail within the leaf of this specimen is stunning in my opinion. The Middle Pennsylvanian Sydney Mines Formation, found in Nova Scotia, Canada, have revealed aRead More →