Fossil Identification Field Guide

Fossil IdentificationField GuidePatrick Nurre

Fossil Identification Field GuideBy Patrick NurreFossil Identification Field GuidePublished by Northwest TreasuresBothell, rthwestexpedition@msn.comCopyright 2017 by Patrick Nurre.All rights reserved.Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced in anymanner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotationsembodied in critical articles and reviews.Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible .Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973,1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman FoundationUsed by permission. (www.Lockman.org)Title page photo: Dinosaur vertebra, photo by Patrick Nurre.

ContentsIntroduction: Why We Should Study Fossils,and Tips for Collecting4I Learning the Fossil TermsII Adaptability and KindsIII What is a Fossil?IV Types of FossilsV A Biblical Model for Interpreting the Rock LayersContaining FossilsVI Identifying the Invertebrate Sea Fossils Part OneVII Identifying the Invertebrate Sea Fossils Part TwoVIII Identifying the Vertebrate Sea FossilsIX Identifying the Vertebrate Land FossilsX Other Fossils91622253847607692114Picture creditsIndex of Fossils126133

I. Learning the Fossil TermsOften, fossil collecting and identification can befrustrating because geologists use technicalwords in the scientific languages of Greek andLatin. This alone is enough to discourageanyone. One thing I have never understood is that our culturenow considers Latin and Greek to be dead languages, mostlikely because we don’t use these languages in our everydayspeech. But if you want to be a scientist, you must learn someLatin and Greek.It will not only help you understandscientific terms, but will even improve your English, too. So,it is well worth the effort to learn a few terms that will help youidentify and enjoy collecting fossils.Following is a short list of terms and words that will provehelpful in learning how to identify your fossils. Biostratigraphy – the branch of geology concernedwith the separation and differentiation of rock units bymeans of the study of the fossils they contain. This ishow secular geologists organize the rock layers. Forexample, all rock layers that have a particular kind ofammonite (AM-mo-nite) would all be the same age. Butthis ignores the Flood and assumes that the rock layerssignify great ages of time. In contrast to this term, theBiblical geologist would refer to the study of the rocklayers as Flood stratigraphy – the layers of rocks, andthe Genesis Flood laid down the fossils in them,rapidly and consecutively. The prefix bios- is from theGreek, and has to do with life.Calcite – a common mineral consisting of theelements calcium, oxygen, and carbon (calciumcarbonate) and is the most abundant mineral insedimentary rocks.9

Concretion – from two Latin words, con, meaningtogether, and crescere, meaning to grow. Concretions arefound in sedimentary strata. Although no one haswitnessed concretions forming today, the fact that theyare found in sedimentary layers (rocks laid down bywater and mud), may hold a clue to their formation –the Flood of Genesis. Concretions are usually asedimentary material such as clay, sandstone orlimestone that has collected around a nucleus of somekind. Often the nuclei of these concretions consist offossils of all types. Some people ask what thedifference is between a concretion and a nodule. Althoughthey may look similar, a nodule can be any material andis often volcanic in origin. A nodule is a lump, knot,or mass of aggregate mineral originally found incontrasting host stratum. An example of a nodule is athunder egg found in hardened volcanic rhyolite ash orlava.Coprolite – meaning dung stone; the petrified/fossilizedremains of poop!Disarticulation (disarticulated) – means a state ofseparation. The condition of being broken up andscattered. Dinosaur bones are most often found asdisarticulated or separated bits and pieces of bone,usually in sandstone, siltstone, limestone, and othersedimentary rock. Disarticulation is a key to theGenesis Flood. The catastrophic nature of a globalflood would have torn up most dinosaurs as they wereinitially overcome by the raging Genesis Flood, thenburied under tons of sediments, and then torn up againas the Flood waters receded off of the face of the earth.This is why we rarely find complete dinosaur skeletons.Except for most marine/fresh water invertebrates andmany vertebrates, most land vertebrate and plantfossils are preserved in the rocks as broken up piecesof bone. Why is this? No one knows for sure, but a10

good guess is that most marine invertebrates andvertebrates that have been preserved as fossils wereprobably buried immediately with the breaking up ofthe fountains of the great deep. The last creatures tobe buried in the Flood were most likely vertebrate landcreatures that floated and then either gradually brokeup as they began to decay or were eaten by survivingmarine creatures. Later as the mountains rose and thevalleys sank down according to Psalm 104:5-9,vertebrate land creatures that had been buried in theflood sediments were again broken up and transportedacross vast land masses. The word articulate is fromthe Latin articulatus, having to do with dividing into joints.Extant - means that something is still living. It is fromthe Latin exstant, meaning to be visible or prominent orexisting.Extinct – extinct means that a creature is consideredto no longer be in existence. The use of this termshould be with caution, however. There are manyexamples of living things that have been declared to beextinct, only to show up somewhere in the world! Twofamiliar examples are the coelacanth (SEE-la-canth)fish, thought to have gone extinct 65 million years agoand then showed up alive off the coast of Madagascarin the 1930s and the Gingko plant which was oncethought to be extinct, only to be discovered alive andwell in China. It is from the Latin exstinct which meansextinguished.The Fossil Record – the sum of the fossils that havebeen collected.Fossilization – the process of turning a once livingthing into a fossil. The word fossil comes from a Latinword, fossilis, and means obtained by digging. This processis not fully understood today. The main reason is thatnot many dead things become fossils. They decayquickly, and that’s the end of it! I don’t know of.11

VI. Identifying the InvertebrateSea Fossils, Part OneThere are so many invertebrate sea fossils that wecould cover, so we are going to take two chaptersto cover them.What is an invertebrate? An invertebrate is ananimal without a backbone. There are several fossil animalsthat meet this criterion that are quite common in the fossilrecord: Trilobites Corals Crinoids Sea Urchins BryozoaOne of the most amazing facts that paleontologists discoveredas early as the 1840s was that what they called the lowest layerin the fossil-bearing strata contained billions of well-developedand well-diversified fossil animals. Life seems to haveexploded on to the scene of life with no evolutionary historyor ancestry. Most of the fossil animals mentioned above werepart of what has been called, The Cambrian Explosion. Thisevent remains today one of the most prolific unsolvedmysteries of evolution. Darwin was extremely bothered by thisphenomenon and considered it to be one of the mainobjections that could be made against his ideas of evolution bynatural selection.Even though paleontologists had considered these animals tobe primitive in the evolutionary scheme of things, theseanimals were later shown to be highly developed creatures butshowed no evolutionary history! Some of these animals havegone extinct but some still thrive in water environments today.12

Where to find these fossil sea animals?Since these were marine animals, you can find these creaturesin almost any area that sedimentary rock exists, especially inlimestone and in shale.Limestone is generally a light-colored rock. But it can bedarker in color too. Look for fossils. Also, if you have somemuriatic acid, if after placing a drop on the rock it fizzes, youhave found limestone.(Left) Limestone with fossils; (right) Limestone without fossils(Left) Limestone with fossils; (right) Limestone without fossils13

Another form of limestone is called coquina. Coquina is amass of cemented fossil shells and is quite common on thecoasts of Florida and California.Coquina – one containing fossil shells (Florida), the other a fossilvertebrate bone (Texas)Shale is a fine-grained sedimentary rock usually exhibitinglayers and can contain an abundance of fossils.Samples of shale from Montana, California, and Nebraska14

Shale formation (near Anaconda, Montana)Fossil ferns in carbonized shale (the whole piece is seven inches long)(Pennsylvania)Sandstone can also contain fossils. Sandstone is a coarsegrained, sedimentary rock, made up primarily of tiny quartzcrystals. Some fossils you may find in sandstone could includemud cracks and ichno fossils.15

(Left) Sandstone formation (Utah); (Right) Ripples in sandstone (Utah)Tracks. about one inch wide, in sandstone, seen at upper left and right(Arizona)Invertebrate and vertebrate sea animals were created on DayFive of Creation Week.Then God said, “Let the waters teem with swarms of livingcreatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanseof the heavens.” And God created the great sea monsters and16

every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmedafter their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and Godsaw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, “Befruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and letbirds multiply on the earth.” There was evening and there wasmorning, a fifth day.Trilobites are numerous inthe fossil record. The wordmeans three lobes and that isprimarily how they areidentified. Their varietyseems almost limitless, andyet they are all classified astrilobites.The basicidentifying characteristic isthe body style – threelobes, with a few exceptions. Take a look at some of the typesof trilobites you might find.17

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TrilobitesCorals are colony animals characterized by having polyps,which are essentially cylinders that have housed the internalorgans of the individual animal. There are a huge variety ofcorals both extinct (not existing anymore) and extant (livingtoday).19

Fossil Identification Field Guide By Patrick Nurre Fossil Identification Field Guide Published by Northwest Treasures Bothell, Washington 425-488-6848 NorthwestRockAndFossil.com . Introduction: Why We Should Study Fossils, and Tips for Collecting 4 I Learning the Fossil .