Other geobloggers are writing about:
Guess which day I launched the blog?
Thanks to everyone who has stopped by so far.
I’ve gotten the same question several times from several readers, so let me address it here for everyone’s edification: Yes, NOVA Geoblog will be left “as is,” where it is. You can link to it, or bookmark it, or rely on its presence as you see fit. It’s “fossilized!” The comments are now closed, so what you see now is what it will remain into the future.
Today, you get a photo of a fossilized crinoid stem, from the Mississippian-aged Lodgepole Limestone of the Bridger Range, north of Bozeman, Montana. A pencil is provided for scale:
Zoomed-in a bit, and cropped. The segments (“columnals”) show up nicely:
Crinoids are echinoderms, the invertebrate phylum which includes sea urchins and sea stars. However, at first glance you might think they were plants, as they are sessile (mainly sessile, anyhow) and have an overall form much like a kindergartner’s sketch of a flower. This morphology is where their common name, sea lilies, comes from.
Filed under: echinoderms, fossils, mississippian (carboniferous), montana, rockies | Comments Off
