After the Dig ( reprise )
by Chris Marotta
Earlier this year ( March, 2004 ) the NYPS Newsletter published an article that I had written about the discoveries that we often make after our digs. These are those interesting or puzzling bits that strike our attention, but may not be recognized at their time of discovery. Examination later on can often reveal a wonderful unseen fossil or something new to study. I have one additional such find to share with you.
October 11th 2003, was a spectacular day for a field trip lead by Erich Rose to Schoharie, NY. The weather was wonderful; and as chance had it, it was also the local annual “Schoharie Day” (in case anyone was wondering what all that nearby musket and cannon fire was about). This was the Saturday that commemorates Schoharie’s ability to withstand a siege by British and Native Indian forces in the “Old Stone Fort”. -A pivotal battle for the Mohawk Valley, during the American Revolution, that took place in a 1772 Schoharie church; built from the same limestone that we all love.
We were all enjoying the astonishingly abundant late-lower Devonian fossils from the Becraft and adjoining formations. Some people found Orthoceras rudis cephalopods, that exceeded a foot. Others collected some bizarre Platycerus gastropods that can take many forms, and those golf ball-like Hindias (“Sponge-Bob-Round-Pants”). That day I also noticed something that was a bit odd, so I scooped it up and took it home.
December and January were cold and snowy, and with so many other finds to prepare, the cobble sized rock that had gotten my attention, just sat in the driveway. All winter it weathered. When spring came, there was time to take a better look. What made me curious was an inclusion in it, with a difference in color from all the other gray-blue toned fossils at this site. This item was reddish with glints of gold toned pyrite reflecting. It was largely cylindrical, about five inches long, somewhat spiral and irregularly proportioned; – Much too irregular to be a cast from even the strangest Platycerus.
This same Spring I was taking a course in Chordate Zoology. The Spiral Valve,
found in the intestines of sharks and coelacanths, was one of the multitude of anatomical features discussed. This got the wheels turning... Could this strange twist indicate it may have passed through a spiral value, and therefore be a coprolite from in the Becraft formation? I took it in to my Professor, a paleoichthyologist, for examination.
His opinion… Yes, it does appear to be a coelacanth or chondrichthys coprolite. I mentioned this find to Don Phillips and he was fast to inform me of its significance. With the exception of one report of a possible bone fragment, no other vertebrate evidence is known from this site. This strange little trace fossil may be evidence that our own vertebrate phylum was present in this ancient shallow sea. Another wondrous story
may have been unraveled, long after our day in the field. Another fascinating discovery made “after the dig”.
by Chris Marotta
Earlier this year ( March, 2004 ) the NYPS Newsletter published an article that I had written about the discoveries that we often make after our digs. These are those interesting or puzzling bits that strike our attention, but may not be recognized at their time of discovery. Examination later on can often reveal a wonderful unseen fossil or something new to study. I have one additional such find to share with you.
October 11th 2003, was a spectacular day for a field trip lead by Erich Rose to Schoharie, NY. The weather was wonderful; and as chance had it, it was also the local annual “Schoharie Day” (in case anyone was wondering what all that nearby musket and cannon fire was about). This was the Saturday that commemorates Schoharie’s ability to withstand a siege by British and Native Indian forces in the “Old Stone Fort”. -A pivotal battle for the Mohawk Valley, during the American Revolution, that took place in a 1772 Schoharie church; built from the same limestone that we all love.
We were all enjoying the astonishingly abundant late-lower Devonian fossils from the Becraft and adjoining formations. Some people found Orthoceras rudis cephalopods, that exceeded a foot. Others collected some bizarre Platycerus gastropods that can take many forms, and those golf ball-like Hindias (“Sponge-Bob-Round-Pants”). That day I also noticed something that was a bit odd, so I scooped it up and took it home.
December and January were cold and snowy, and with so many other finds to prepare, the cobble sized rock that had gotten my attention, just sat in the driveway. All winter it weathered. When spring came, there was time to take a better look. What made me curious was an inclusion in it, with a difference in color from all the other gray-blue toned fossils at this site. This item was reddish with glints of gold toned pyrite reflecting. It was largely cylindrical, about five inches long, somewhat spiral and irregularly proportioned; – Much too irregular to be a cast from even the strangest Platycerus.
This same Spring I was taking a course in Chordate Zoology. The Spiral Valve,
found in the intestines of sharks and coelacanths, was one of the multitude of anatomical features discussed. This got the wheels turning... Could this strange twist indicate it may have passed through a spiral value, and therefore be a coprolite from in the Becraft formation? I took it in to my Professor, a paleoichthyologist, for examination.
His opinion… Yes, it does appear to be a coelacanth or chondrichthys coprolite. I mentioned this find to Don Phillips and he was fast to inform me of its significance. With the exception of one report of a possible bone fragment, no other vertebrate evidence is known from this site. This strange little trace fossil may be evidence that our own vertebrate phylum was present in this ancient shallow sea. Another wondrous story
may have been unraveled, long after our day in the field. Another fascinating discovery made “after the dig”.
