Saturday, August 4, 2012

Costellirostra singularis from the Licking Creek formation

This past April I took a trip through Virginia and West Virginia exploring some sites that were listed in the book "Fossil Collecting in the Mid-Atlantic States" by Jasper Burns. One of the more productive sites was in the Licking Creek formation, which is lower Devonian in age (Lockhovian to Pragian stage), where all the fossils were replaced by quartz and could be found eroded loose out of the rock.

I think the specimen below is the brachiopod Costellirostra peculiaris based on this link from the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History's website.  Edit 6/2/15: Since doing some collecting in the lower Devonian of NY I believe that this should be called Costellirostra singularis.

Brachial valve
Anterior
Pedicle valve
Posterior

Profile
Closer view of the fine costae decorating the surface of the shell.

The above specimen came from a roadcut along US route 220 in Highland county, Virginia. The cut is listed as site #16 in the book "Fossil Collecting in the Mid-Atlantic States" by Jasper Burns. The Licking Creek formation is equivalent to the Shriver Chert member of the Old Port formation in Pennsylvania and the Birdsong formation in Tennessee which means that the fossils are part of the Helderbergian fauna.

No comments:

Post a Comment