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phosphate tailings
mountains of tiny
teeth and bones

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Shrimp fecal pellet in pellet grainstone stained with Alizarin red S. Light curved lines within pellet are channels formed by hairs inside the shrimp's gut, now filled with calcite cement. Patterns of channels in cross section are readily identified, and can be used to ID the species responsible. Smackover Formation, shallow-marine shoal or back-barrier lagoon, 1 mm wide.

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International Ichnofabric workshop 16A: held via zoom, and focused on younger faculty, students, and other early-career scientists. Registration & abstract-submission portals are open. The meeting will be November 13-14. https://www.uwa.edu/iiw16

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This blog must be starting to feel neglected. This weekend, as with so many recent weekends, I am working hard to catch up with various tasks, many of them self-imposed. I am working on a paleontology/sedimentology project with two other people, a study of a small carbonate buildup in North Alabama, which is more than 300 million years old. One of us, not me, plans to point count a large number of thin sections. Point counting is when you use a grid to randomly select points on a surface. At each place where the lines cross you identify what's there, and the result is a tabulation indicating which things are common and which others are less common or absent. Well, Doug can't count points unless he knows what he's looking at. We have been working on a dictionary, so to speak, of what he might find. One of the fossils in this rock is a microscopic alga (?). There may be several different species represented, and I have spent the last few days measuring, counting, and examining specimens of this critter so that we can define what we should call these little guys when they show up in the crosshairs. I think it's a lot of fun to figure this stuff out, but the early stages, lots and lots of measuring and counting, require loud rock music so that I can stay focused. Bands like Mott the Hoople and the Velvet Underground are particularly useful for this purpose. I will show you guys some pictures later, in case you are interested, once I figure out what's going on.

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The International Ichnofabric Workshop 16A, a virtual workshop, has been rescheduled for November 13-14, which is a weekend. The abstract and registration deadline is now September 30. This will allow more time for people to prepare abstracts in what has been a very difficult year. The registration fee is $40. The website will be live in about a week, and will include information about how to register and how to submit abstracts. Those who have already submitted abstracts will not need to resubmit them.

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Sale to Eyr To The Telescope (I think); poem submitted to Star*line. My other recent poems are all here. Working at work about new discovery of "large" microbial colonies in N. Alabama. Almost ready to start writing that. Also time to put DExt DN together.Keeping busy.

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 More pictures of the Mississippian microbial reef in North Alabama.  

 

A microconchid (encruster) only a millimeter across itself encrusted by a microbial critter (arrow) in a Mississippian microbial reef in North Alabama.

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More pictures of the Mississippian microbial reef in North Alabama.  

 

A busy part of the reef, consisting of microbial thrombolitr (originally nonlaminated lime mud, which is commonly clotted or pelletal). B=fragment of a bryozoan, A="Problematicum A," a tubular fossil, S=a cement-filled shelter void (note semicircular single-chambered foraminiferan on the roof, left of "S"), lower arrow=multiple microfossils encrusting the bryozoan, left arrow=more on the top side, upper left arrow=a former void now filled with miscellaneous very fine particles (there's another on the lower right). Scale 0.5 millimeters. The reef grew in shallow warm marine water close to the shoreline, perhaps in a lagoon.

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More pictures of the Mississippian microbial reef in North Alabama. 

 

Thrombolite (microbial carbonate) with voids filled with micropelletal cement (P) separated by a dark pillar of thrombolite. White arrow points to calcite-filled fracture. Long dimension 2.5 millimeters.

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 More pictures of the Mississippian microbial reef in North Alabama. 

 

These show parts of the same fenestrate (grid-like) bryozoan. White arrowheads point to sections through parts of the grid. White areas beneath the fossil were sheltered by it and kept open (shelter porosity). Later, calcite crystals grew to fill all the open space. Stitched together from photos with vertical dimensions of 2.5 millimeters.

 

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More pictures of the Mississippian microbial reef in North Alabama.

 

 
Dense clotted thrombolite (dT) and loose (lT) forming framework of reef. Voids filled with coarse calcite cement (F) or micropelletal calcite cement (upper arrow). Fossils include fenestraye bryozoa (B) and microconchids (lower arrow). 2.5 millimeters in long direction.

 

 

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Yay! I took more pictures of the Mississippian microbial reef in North Alabama.

 Oblique cut through a large burrow filled with micropelletal calcite cement. Surrounded by thick burrow wall constructed of similar, but denser, material. One millimeter in long direction.

 

 

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Fossils of the Black Belt 21 (2021) — a Hands-on Field Workshop

The Geological Survey of Alabama and the University of West Alabama take the lead in presenting Fossils of the Black Belt 21, the latest in a long-running series of annual field paleontology workshops for teachers. This year's workshop will focus on paleoecology and paleoenvironmental analysis, the science of understanding environments and living things of the distant past.

The workshop will be in two parts. In part one, Alabama paleontologists will present the geologic history of West Alabama, the origin and nature of the chalk, as well as methods and aims of paleoecology and paleoenvironmental analysis. These lectures will be prerecorded and delivered via Zoom. They will be viewable beginning a few days before the field workshop, and you can watch them whenever it's convenient. The field workshop will take place on Tuesday October 12 on a large chalk outcrop near Selma. You will divide into groups and, by examining the chalk and its fossils, develop hypotheses about the origin of the chalk. This field activity will be conducted using social distancing, and masks will be required. Depending on the nature of the health crisis at that time, and the possibility of severe weather, the field activity may need to be canceled. If this happens, we will mail the guidebook, Jim Lacefield's book, and all other handouts, to registrants. The Zoom lectures will be provided even if the field workshop is canceled.

We will meet at Harrell Station, a productive Cretaceous fossil site on private land near Selma, Alabama. The workshop will take place on Tuesday, October 12 2021. The cost is $28 for this one-day workshop. This includes lunch and a vast array of science-education goodies, including the famed book by Jim Lacefield, Lost Worlds in Alabama Rocks (a $25 value).

To register, please contact Dr. David Kopaska-Merkel, 205-246-9346, dkm@gsa.state.al.us.

 

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Microbial reef (T=thrombolite) containing cement-filled shelter voids (C) and an odd ooid (circular object in center). Ooid nucleus is spheroidal microfossil stuffed with quartz silt (white) and lime mud (dark). Long dimension of field of view 1 millimeter, Mississippian, North Alabama.

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Section through a fragment of a large fenestrate bryozoan. These critters made stony skeletons resembling wire mesh. The lozenge-shaped linked light areas are cuts through seven successive "wires" of the skeleton. This fossil is embedded in a microbial reef; scale at bottom is 0.2 millimeters. These bryozoans were most common in warm shallow marine water.Mississippian, North Alabama.

 

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Dinosaur calendar by Mark Witton doesn't identify the paintings--what the heck! Mark, I know you know this.

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Bryozoan (B) encrusted by tiny microbial critter (arrow), which made a series of cells with dark walls, now filled with white calcite. Field of view 1 millimeter in long dimension, Mississippian, North Alabama.

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Thin-walled snail shell containing micropelletal cement mixed with larger cylindrical fecal pellets. Coarse calcite cement filled the remainder of the shell. Shell embedded in microbial reef. Image area 2.5 millimeters high, Mississippian, North Alabama. Brown stain indicates the presence of iron minerals.

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Composite photograph of a microconchid, seen under a microscope. They look like tiny snails, but are distant relatives. This one preserves multiple wall layers, but only part of the coiled tube is preserved. The originally hollow tube is filled with coarse calcite crystals.Mississippian, Alabama, scale is 0.2 millimeters.

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Teacher workshop in paleontology, West Alabama, October, when the weather is perfect. Two photos of participants from previous years, collecting fossils  and learning by hands-on doing, followed by the registration form. If you have any questions, ask me here: dkm@gsa.state.al.us.