By Bev,
It was a beautiful May day and I was driving back from Winona after visiting my Mother. I decided to stop at this road cut on Cty. 33 between Altura and Hwy. 14. You will know you are there when you see this! LOL
I started walking along the ditch and the first thing I found was this:
These are probably worm burrows which are considered to be trace fossils.
Then I put these up on thefossilforum for ID’s as this outcrop just doesn’t look familiar to me:
Probably stromatolites.
Probably stromatolites.
Our “reigning paleontologist” is Caleb Scheer of Midwestpaleo.com, here is his comment:
“The formation is the Oneota Dolomite in the Prairie Du Chein Group and is lower Ordovician. The Jordan Sandstone lies below that which is the uppermost Cambrian. The fossils in pictures 1 and 2 are likely stromatolites that can be found throughout the Oneota. The Jordan sandstone doesn’t have a lot of fossils except for a few layers loaded with traces such as worm (or some type of critter) burrows.”
I found these also, the consensus appears to be that they are geologic, not biologic. 🙂
Remember that old Minnesota car game: What’s that smell? I had memories of that game as I approached this fox den, note baby fox on far right.
Fox den in rocks. You can smell it before you see it.
I backed away, across the road and got this pic of a baby red fox.
Baby red fox. Did you notice the one off to the right in the den picture?
One of the reasons I love fossil hunting is the wildlife! I love getting outdoors, taking pictures, finding fossils and bringing home rocks!
Sometimes I like to just sit and think about what it must have been like, 500 million years ago, right here. I would be sitting on the bottom of a shallow sea, perhaps 150′ deep and on the equator! Imagine a sea without fish! Cephalopods are the apex predator! Trilobites crawling around the bottom of the sea floor. NO land plants or animals!
How do we know all this? The fossil record! And amateur fossil hunters who are careful and note the locations of their finds are an important part of piecing together this history. Many of the important finds are found by dedicated amatuer paleontologists who bring their specimens to the attention of the professionals. Yeah for the amateurs!
Life is all about change…
