Stumbled into this pretty stone yesterday. Elevation, approx 5000 feet above sea level, again location SE Wyoming. I’ve found many stones like this
with shells but never one in this great of condition. Let me know what ya think!
Thanks - kj
That's a fine looking OLD braciopod fossil. Hard to narrow it down specifically, without associated fossils from the same bed, there are a few similar looking varieties, but I would ball park it to Upper Ordovician, about 450 million years old. Most of the younger limestone deposits from the Silurian, Devonian, had eroded away in Wyoming, prior to the much younger Permian deposits now found. Very approximate guess.
It's indeed a Paleozoic Era brachiopod--genus either Neochonetes, or Chonetes. And it's from the late Paleozoic--either the Pennsylvanian or Permian Period--not the Upper Ordovician.
No Ordovician strata is exposed in southeastern Wyoming. But there's plenty of Paleozoic late Pennslvanian to early Permian sedimentary material (around 310 to 290 million years old) in southeastern Wyoming.