Description
Here is your chance to own a classic fossil from a classic site. This is a Spectacular piece.
HARDER and Harder to obtain Crinoid fossils.
Fossils especially this Fossil Gastropod & Holdfast block from this site are preserved in Spectacular detail. Because of the wide variety and number of these Crinoids it is also assumed they lived in dense communities.
This Crinoid is the attachment point for an animal related to modern day starfish so they are echinoderms. They have modern relatives also crinoids that live in the deep oceans today. So then they lived in shallow salt water seas and lagoons. They lived during the Paleozoic and were most prevalent during the Mississippian Period.
Although there were many species of Crinoids, they shared a basic body styles consisting of a stem by which it anchored to the sea floor with a “holdfast”. A calyx which enclosed soft body tissues, and arms and pinnules which filtered food from the water.
This Fossil Gastropod & Holdfast shows where the crinoid attached the animal to the sea floor. But also there are two gastropods on the back side and several brachiopods. They thrived in the warm shallow inland sea that covered the area during the Silurian Period. Because the crinoids living near what is now Waldron, Indiana they were established near an ocean delta system that periodically buried the colonies in silt. However the silt eventually hardened into stone that preserved the crinoids in glorious detail.
The Fossil gastropod & holdfast has exceptional detail . This fossil is 2 1/2 by 4 1/2 inches long. It has been meticulously prepared using air abrasive technology. It also has various bryozoans on the plate as well.
