Pennsylvania state fossil is a trilobite (1 Viewer)

[JacksinPA]

Identifying and Collecting

Identifying and Collecting

www.dcnr.pa.gov

Pennsylvania State Fossil​

Pennsylvania’s state fossil is of an organism known as Phacops rana, a type of trilobite. Trilobites are an extinct category of joint-legged animals (Arthropods) related to crabs, lobsters, shrimps, spiders, and insects.

Trilobites are among the most complex of all the animals that ever existed without backbones. Their traits included the following:

• Well-developed nervous systems
• Large antennae
• Many appendages for swimming, walking, or feeding
• Hard outer skeletons
• Large eyes and the most ancient vision system known to scientists

Trilobites are a common fossil in many of the early to middle Paleozoic rocks of central Pennsylvania. These rocks range in age from 541 to 359 million years old.

Complete fossil specimens are rare because a trilobite’s rigid outer skeletal segments were joined by flexible organic connections that decayed on the death of the animal. Currents and scavengers then served to separate the skeletal parts.

The abundance of trilobite skeletal parts in the fossil record was enhanced by the fact that the animals grew by casting off their outer skeleton in a series of molt stages. One animal probably produced 10 to 12 potentially preservable skeletons in its lifetime.

Phacops rana is found in Pennsylvania's Devonian-age rocks (rocks between 419 and 359 million years old).

Explore the Pennsylvania outdoors and see if you can spot our state fossil!
============================================
Unfortunately for me, the rock exposures where these are found are in the central part of the state, which is out of my range.

This trilobite has been renamed
Eldredgeops rana
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldredgeops_rana

See also https://elibrary.dcnr.pa.gov/GetDocument?docId=1752420&DocName=PaGeoMag_v43no2.pdf

For those interested, there are quite a few of this species listed on eBay but from rocks in NY state, not PA.

 

[humbolt]

Okay. I won’t say it. Who is Delaware’s state fossil?

 

[JacksinPA]

Okay. I won’t say it. Who is Delaware’s state fossil?

Try the Google.

 

[humbolt]

Try the Google.

You can’t make me say it.

 

[MamboDervish]

Identifying and Collecting

Identifying and Collecting

www.dcnr.pa.gov

Pennsylvania State Fossil​

Pennsylvania’s state fossil is of an organism known as Phacops rana, a type of trilobite. Trilobites are an extinct category of joint-legged animals (Arthropods) related to crabs, lobsters, shrimps, spiders, and insects.

Trilobites are among the most complex of all the animals that ever existed without backbones. Their traits included the following:

• Well-developed nervous systems
• Large antennae
• Many appendages for swimming, walking, or feeding
• Hard outer skeletons
• Large eyes and the most ancient vision system known to scientists

Trilobites are a common fossil in many of the early to middle Paleozoic rocks of central Pennsylvania. These rocks range in age from 541 to 359 million years old.

Complete fossil specimens are rare because a trilobite’s rigid outer skeletal segments were joined by flexible organic connections that decayed on the death of the animal. Currents and scavengers then served to separate the skeletal parts.

The abundance of trilobite skeletal parts in the fossil record was enhanced by the fact that the animals grew by casting off their outer skeleton in a series of molt stages. One animal probably produced 10 to 12 potentially preservable skeletons in its lifetime.

Phacops rana is found in Pennsylvania's Devonian-age rocks (rocks between 419 and 359 million years old).

Explore the Pennsylvania outdoors and see if you can spot our state fossil!
============================================
Unfortunately for me, the rock exposures where these are found are in the central part of the state, which is out of my range.

This trilobite has been renamed
Eldredgeops rana
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldredgeops_rana

See also https://elibrary.dcnr.pa.gov/GetDocument?docId=1752420&DocName=PaGeoMag_v43no2.pdf

For those interested, there are quite a few of this species listed on eBay but from rocks in NY state, not PA.

I spent the year 2006 up in the Catskill range in New York, working on an emergency dam repair in the town of Gilboa - once at the very edge of a Devonian sea. Many fossils, including trilobites, can still be found among the rocks in the Schoharie Creek north of the dam, and I've met fossil hunters who came from as far as Canada every summer, just to search for them.

There's a nice little fossil museum up there, and some large examples of Eospermatopteris sitting right along the roadside as you drive by.

View Our Fossils | Gilboa Fossils

www.gilboafossils.org

The top of the east training wall of the spillway is covered with fossils, including trilobites. It seems the capstones were selected for just that reason, back when the dam was built 100 years ago.

 

[ataraxia]

I read the thread title “Pennsylvania state fossil is a trilobite” and thought it was going to be something about John Fetterman or something.

 

[JacksinPA]

I spent the year 2006 up in the Catskill range in New York, working on an emergency dam repair in the town of Gilboa - once at the very edge of a Devonian sea. Many fossils, including trilobites, can still be found among the rocks in the Schoharie Creek north of the dam, and I've met fossil hunters who came from as far as Canada every summer, just to search for them.

There's a nice little fossil museum up there, and some large examples of Eospermatopteris sitting right along the roadside as you drive by.

View Our Fossils | Gilboa Fossils

www.gilboafossils.org

The top of the east training wall of the spillway is covered with fossils, including trilobites. It seems the capstones were selected for just that reason, back when the dam was built 100 years ago.

Most of the PA state fossil listed on eBay came from Erie County in NY. Those trilobites got around. The sea floor must have been covered with them given how often they are recovered. Trilobites don't fossilize readily, which adds to the probability that there were millions of them when alive.

 

[MamboDervish]

Most of the PA state fossil listed on eBay came from Erie County in NY. Those trilobites got around. The sea floor must have been covered with them given how often they are recovered. Trilobites don't fossilize readily, which adds to the probability that there were millions of them when alive.

Probably many, many billions, as they occurred world wide.
There are at least three different types in The Burgess Shale in Western Canada.

Burgess Shale trilobites

Summary page describing the trilobites of the Burgess SHale

www.trilobites.info

 

[JacksinPA]

Probably many, many billions, as they occurred world wide.
There are at least three different types in The Burgess Shale in Western Canada.

Burgess Shale trilobites

Summary page describing the trilobites of the Burgess SHale

www.trilobites.info

Attached is interesting summary of PA trilobites. I'm interested in C, which is listed as coming from the Marcellus Shale. That is a huge formation from NE PA into the Midwest. This formation is infamous for its use in frakking for natural gas.

 

[JacksinPA]

Attached is interesting summary of PA trilobites. I'm interested in C, which is listed as coming from the Marcellus Shale. That is a huge formation from NE PA into the Midwest. This formation is infamous for its use in frakking for natural gas.

Attached is a list of locations etc where Dechenella trilobites have been found. Oddly, PA is not included.

https://geosci.uchicago.edu/~foote/MORPHDAT/TRILOBITE_DATA.TXT