Ferns or feathers? U B The Judge

[diggummup]

I've taken several pictures of this rock/fossil,hopefully they will be clear enough to see the detail.This fossil is about 6 inches long,sorta semicircular and maybe 2 in. thick at its thickest point.Its a piece of shale (I think),there are several layers of rock.When you look at it through a loupe,it looks like feathers.I can't tell,let me know what you think. H.H.

 

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[omnicognic]

Hard to say without a magnified image, but to me it appears to be fern, or a similar plant. It is however, a very cool fossil! great find! Congrats! HH omnicognic 8)

 

[bakergeol]

Nice ferns. It would be interesting to know where you collected these to get an idea of it's age. Fossil feather imprints are incredibly rare because? they simply are not preserved in the fossil record. If you did find some fossil feather imprints besides being rare they could be very valuable.
Here is a link for some fossil Carboniferous ferns. Just click on the fern name for a close up.
http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/TreeFerns.html


George

 

[diggummup]

Thanks for the link Bakergeo and the info.Thanks for the comments Omnicognic.I found this in Maryland quite a few years ago.It doesn't just have fossil imprints on it.It has the actual petrified remains of the plant or whatever it is.Maybe i'll take it down to the Graves Archeology Museum and let them have a look see.Well i'm off to do a little MD'ing on some private property adjacent to a park which has an indian mound/s on it.No,i'm not hunting indian mounds,for all you out there so quick to jump! H.H.