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Monday, September 17, 2012

Lichenalia bryozoan from Arkona

Today I'm featuring an odd bryozoan fossil that I've found as encrustations on horn corals or shells in the Hungry Hollow member of the Widder formation. The specimen below I think may be Lichenalia stellata but I'm not entirely sure.



The species is known from the Hungry Hollow member, based on this book from the University of Michigan's Deep Blue Archive, and I found it listed in Grabau's book "Geology and Paleontology of 18 Mile Creek" but the only picture I can find online do not show any pores. If I do an image search on Google the examples I see are of a loose colony that has a banded growth pattern that reminds me of a shelf fungus that grows on the side of a tree.

Here is another example that is encrusting a horn coral and an Auloporid coral.


Then there is this fossil that looks like an inside out version of a bryozoan colony. I'm not sure what genera this is either. The black crystalline areas have been replaced by pyrite.




All the specimens shown above are from the Hungry Hollow member of the Widder formation which is Devonian (Giventian stage) in age. I collected them near Arkona in Ontario providence, Canada.

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