An unusual storm windrow mostly made out of favreinid fecal pellets. Only time I've ever seen this on the beach, though I have seen one in a rock core more than 100 million years old.*
The windrow was quite extensive. It consisted almost entirely of fecal pellets of callianassid burrowing shrimp. This green-gray blanket was deposited by Tropical Storm Isidore. How did the stormsort out just these soft & fragile cylindrical pellets?
*West Appleton oil field, Jurassic Smackover Formation, samples from a couple of miles underground.
So are these contemporary fecal pellets, or coprolites? (gives self high-five for spontaneously remembering "coprolite")
ReplyDeleteGood job! Contemporary. I've seen quite a few much like them in Jurassic rocks from similar environments.
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