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Post by Joe Botting on Mar 6, 2014 11:14:50 GMT -5
Finally got out to the hill for an hour the other day, after this long, soggy winter. Still had to wade through puddles to get there, but could have been worse. The good news is that even in an hour some interesting things turned up. Here's a new sponge, for example: It seems to be Coniculospongia, a genus previously known from one site in the Devonian of the US... so finding it in the Ordovician of Wales is a bit of a surprise. It might be only a related one, but still, it's a strange lineage of sponges that I don't fully understand, and didn't expect to see here. Then there's this: I'm not even sure which Kingdom this is in... the detailed structure could potentially be sponge, but there's no sign of distinct spicules. If it is a sponge, it's got to be something like a dictyosponge, which would be interesting in itself. It could also be something like an alga, perhaps similar to the modern Peacock's Tail: www.makingwavesproject.org.uk/marine-wildlife-explorer/peacocks-tail-weed/There was another really nice sponge that I need better pictures of before presenting it to the world... so, three new species is not a bad haul for an hour's visit. I just wonder how much else there is still up there... this could be a loooong paper.
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Post by ammocarbsteve on Mar 9, 2014 3:33:00 GMT -5
Joe.... Congratulations.... The weather turns for the better and you go collecting, think yourself lucky I'm tiling and gardening lol....So this was a supprise find from many angles... Well done and get back out there while you can.... I like the comment about the looong paper... I find something and I'm faced with anything from 2o to 50 hours prepwork... Occasionally more... and you find something and I would imagine it can be many hundreds of hours research and referencing doing the write up....Good luck and keep us posted...
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Post by pleecan (Peter Lee) on Mar 16, 2014 6:57:15 GMT -5
Super find Joe, Congratulations ! Exciting to find a new species
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Post by Joe Botting on Mar 19, 2014 7:36:55 GMT -5
Joe.... Congratulations.... The weather turns for the better and you go collecting, think yourself lucky I'm tiling and gardening lol....So this was a supprise find from many angles... Well done and get back out there while you can.... I like the comment about the looong paper... I find something and I'm faced with anything from 2o to 50 hours prepwork... Occasionally more... and you find something and I would imagine it can be many hundreds of hours research and referencing doing the write up....Good luck and keep us posted... Thanks again, both. Fifty hours of prep work is a lot longer than it takes to do a description, once I've got the specimens in front of me. The difficulty is more in working out which specimens are the same species, and which might be different, and then defining the differences from those and every other species known. It's a lot easier for sponges than for many other groups, though, because there is so little known about them already. It's kind-of like being a Victorian again, with a virtually clean slate to work from... just the way I like it. Haven't been out much for fossils recently - I've been out doing a spot of gardening too, among other things. We did have a few hours at another new site on the edge of a dolerite intrusion, which produced nice graptolites and a few good sponges (just the one common species, though). Will get on and photograph that other sponge I mentioned soon, with any luck...
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Post by ammocarbsteve on Mar 19, 2014 15:33:00 GMT -5
Hi Joe....Thanks for the insight.... I have managed a few outings collecting myself but I dont pick anything up unless I really want it these days... I already have a big backlog of prep...I also have some jobs to catch up on, decorating, gardening, tiling etc so spring will be a busy time for me in catching up with some jobs to...
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Post by reighan on Mar 22, 2014 11:32:40 GMT -5
I'm so glad I can pop in here and see all this great stuff. :-) Maybe I can get out and about soon (climate permitting). I have my licence but am having trouble finding a (low priced, automatic) car.
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Post by Joe Botting on Mar 26, 2014 5:20:53 GMT -5
I'm so glad I can pop in here and see all this great stuff. :-) Maybe I can get out and about soon (climate permitting). I have my licence but am having trouble finding a (low priced, automatic) car. Well, we've got to keep you entertained somehow. It sounds like I'll be up to give a talk to the North Wales group in May, so if you've got wheels by then maybe I'll see you there? hang on... you've got your licence??? Woohoo!!!! Congratulations!!
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Post by reighan on Mar 26, 2014 5:50:23 GMT -5
Thanks. :-) I may or may not be about to have a car. I'm a member of the North Wales group but haven't been able to be active due to transportation problems so maybe that will change soon! The May date gives me some time to work things out...
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ryanc
New Member
Posts: 15
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Post by ryanc on Mar 28, 2014 8:57:54 GMT -5
Hi Joe,
It looks like a great site - have you worked out what these sponges were growing on? Any sign of corals or were conditions too muddy?
Regards,
Ryan
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Post by Joe Botting on Mar 30, 2014 12:15:34 GMT -5
Hi Joe, It looks like a great site - have you worked out what these sponges were growing on? Any sign of corals or were conditions too muddy? Regards, Ryan Thanks Ryan. These are offshore sponges, which grow directly in/on the soft sediment. Many of them have modified, enlarged anchoring spicules at the base, but others just embedded themselves into the mud a little way. It's too early and too muddy for corals, really - bar a few weird ones like kilbuchophylllids that might have been around at this time, but have never turned up near here. There's not a lot of work been done on the attachment strategies of these early sponges, largely because they're not usually preserved intact - the root tufts tend to be detached or at least partly disarticulated... The more I see of this site, the more there is. Some very interesting bits and pieces, but little that suggests soft tissue preservation, and no obvious worms or leggy things. So, not a first-class Lagerstatte, but definitely worth having.
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Post by Joe Botting on Sept 12, 2014 14:06:02 GMT -5
Not a sponge, but a nice addition to the fauna: a rather nice little bryozoan. Brozoan by joe with a camera, on Flickr Whatever it is, it's a new one for the area; hopefully we'll be able to get a name on it at some point, but no luck yet...
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Post by pleecan (Peter Lee) on Sept 13, 2014 8:52:09 GMT -5
Very nice Joe!!! PL
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Post by ammocarbsteve on Sept 13, 2014 12:23:19 GMT -5
Joe.... Another fantastic find... Your lucks certainly in at the moment... New one for the area to boot !... Congratulations....
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ryanc
New Member
Posts: 15
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Post by ryanc on Sept 14, 2014 4:23:30 GMT -5
What a great Bryozoan! It's quite a distinctive looking one but doesn't seem to closely resemble any of the species I could find pictures of in my limited literature/google image searches. From what I have read the British Ordovician bryozoans are sadly neglected in terms of research so you may struggle to get a species or even genus level ID. Species level identification is also dependant on preservation of the internal structure and thin sectioning the specimen. Looks like you are going to be busy with this site for a long time Regards, Ryan
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Post by Joe Botting on Sept 14, 2014 10:58:24 GMT -5
What a great Bryozoan! It's quite a distinctive looking one but doesn't seem to closely resemble any of the species I could find pictures of in my limited literature/google image searches. From what I have read the British Ordovician bryozoans are sadly neglected in terms of research so you may struggle to get a species or even genus level ID. Species level identification is also dependant on preservation of the internal structure and thin sectioning the specimen. Looks like you are going to be busy with this site for a long time Regards, Ryan Tell me about it, Ryan... I've come across this problem repeatedly, with the specialists not being interested if they can't section it. Limestones are hard to find around here, unfortunately, but occasionally you get that odd bit that hasn't been decalcified yet... but, it seems, not enough to be worth writing up. This looks so distinctive, though, that we may get lucky. I think it's a fenestellid, but it's not one I've found pictures of yet. Thanks for seeing what you could find - with something like a bryozoan colony, a big part of working them out really is just matching up pictures of colony form. As you say, this place is going to keep me busy for ages... which is really a pain, as I could do with getting something written up and finished one day..!
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