Calamites

June 21, 2003 - Carboniferous Fossils, Jefferson Co, AL

BPS members visited 2 areas of new road development and a small quarry in Jefferson County this month, making 3 stops total. We had not visited these locations before, so were not sure how prolific the sites would be.

(Photos courtesy Greg Mestler, Ron Beerman, and Vicki Lais.)

hunting fossils at site

At stop #1, several brachiopods and a couple of slabs with small amphibian track prints were found.

hunting fossils at site
Jan found a number of brachiopods at this spot.

At stop #2, a number of nice limpets (gastropods) were found.

fossil limpet

ice cream delivered to fossil site

How's this for service? First time we ever had roadside delivery!

At stop #3, a number of plant fossils were found at a local quarry.

hunting fossils at quarry

Picture of Calamites found just above a coal seam at one of the sites visited. It measures 101mm in diameter (approx 4 inches) and 304 mm (12”) in length. This cast of the central pith-cavity of the trunk is a very common fossil of Calamites. It is characterized by the articulation and the vertical ribbing between the nodes. The ribs are the imprints of the vascular strands. It measures 101mm in diameter (approx 4 inches) and 304 mm (12”) in length. This tree, in size up to 20 meters, grew during the Carboniferous period, about 320-350 million years ago. (This specimen found by Ron, Claire got the other half, which is about the same size.)

Calamites

Stigmaria Ficoides

Stigmaria Ficoides. This is a fossilized root of the Sigillaria tree. This piece measures 102 mm by 114 mm. It was found near a coal seam. This plant lived during the Pennsylvanian Period of the Paleozoic Era 320-350 mya around swamps or lakes grew to several meters in height. Its modern day relatives are the small club mosses and lycopods. The round nodes on the surface of stigmaria are scars where rootlets were once attached and arranged in a radial fashion about stigmaria like the bristles of a bottle brush. During their life these trees shed parts of their outer bark.

spore case of Neuropteris leaf maybe

Possibilities - a spore case, or Neuropteris leaf.

looking at fossils
Leisa & Winnie discussing the current find.

Some fern material found at the site is shown below.

fern

April 30, 2000 - Pennsylvanian Fossils, Walker Co, AL

Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa, Alabama

The New River Mine is a surface mine which was spotted by Jim Lacefield in early February this year, and shortly thereafter Jim and I scouted the site out. As expected, the site included plant fossils, but one difference compared to other sites that Jim noticed was an abundance of fossils of Artisia, the pith of the gymnospermous tree known as Cordaites. The only other sites where I have seen Artisia fossils are the Kimberly surface mine (see BPS report for May 29, 1999), and another mine near Eldridge that the BPS visited with Wayne Canis's class in March 1998.

About 20 BPS members and guests attended the formal field trip to the site which we had on this day. The weather was sunny and hot, and once we got inside we all saw that the mine covered a vast area. I show two pictures of the site here. However, Jim and I also noticed that the area where we found fossils in February had been reworked and was largely gone. In spite of the vast area, it was hard finding fossils at this site.

Figure 1 Trip attendees explore the area between two large rock piles.

Figure 2 View of a rock wall roughly on the east side of the site.

Bruce Relihan was the first to find an interesting specimen of Artisia, shown in the picture here. Artisia is characterized by horizontal ridges along the pith, which can be found in cast form as well as impressions, much like a Calamites pith. The specimen Bruce found appears to be either an impression or a highly flattened cast. The ridged area is framed by a larger area obviously affected by the plant. This frame must indicate the true extent of the trunk.

Figure 3 Artisia specimen found by Bruce Relihan.

Other types of fossils found were bark impressions of arborescent lycopods. I show pictures of two different types here. One appears to be of the type Lepidodendron obovatum, with very large leaf scars. I am not certain about the type of the other piece shown, other than it is also likely to be a Lepidodendron.
	Figure 4 Bark impression of Lepidodendron obovatum, with large, distinct leaf scars.

Figure 5 Bark impression of another likely type of Lepidodendron.

The last pieces I illustrate are ones I found in February during my scouting visit with Jim Lacefield. One appears to be a mostly unflattened cast of a branch of Calamites. The piece shows 15 strong, indented nodes, and I must say it resembles a petrified tootsie roll! I am not sure of the species of this Calamites, but I did find a type of Calamites at this site that I was able to identify. I found highly compressed cast pieces of what I think is Calamites suckowi, one of the more common species of this genus.

Figure 6 Cast fossil of a branch of Calamites, with 15 clear nodes.

After a couple of hours of searching with limited results, trip attendees decided to return to Union Chapel Mine, about 30 miles east of the New River site. Union Chapel Mine is so rich that it continues to yield good specimens even though many people have visited the site the past 4 months. It is a good site to fall back on when other sites do not live up to expectations. See the reports for January 23, March 19, and May 28, 2000 for information on this mine.

July 24, 1999 - Pennsylvanian Fossils - Walker Co, AL

Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa, Alabama

This field trip was a very special one for the BPS. We visited a surface coal mine in Walker County. About 20 BPS members and guests attended the trip, which occurred on one of the hottest and most humid days of the year thus far.

This is one of the largest surface coal mining operations in the state. The area is part of the major Pottsville Formation, and is also known as the Warrior Basin. The BPS was hosted by Mr. Hendon, a mine engineer, who also brought his son along. Mr. Hendon first gave us a basic description of the mine, its history, its extent, and the geology of the area. He then took us on a tour of the mine, allowing us to park near a monster machine known as a "dragline". To access the coal seams, overlying soil and hard rock has to be removed, which is the principal task of the dragline. Usually there are 100-200 feet of solid rock to be removed, but on Saturday the dragline was mostly removing topsoil.

--Edited by Vicki Lais

The dragline. The 180 ton
bucket is hanging in the middle
of the photo.

Climbing into the dragline.

lot of people in the bucket The machine uses a 180 ton metal bucket to drag soil and rock forward
for lifting, and then rotates to dump the material on an area that has
already been mined. The machine is so large and so specialized that,
according to Mr. Hendon, it cost $36 million when it was brand new. Not
only were we allowed to view the dragline from close up, but we were
also able to go inside and see how it works. The movements of the
bucket can be efficiently operated by one person, but three other
workers are usually present to keep the machinery functioning and
oiled. The complex manipulations of the dragline depend on 16 giant
motors of over 100 horsepower each, one of which we saw winding and
unwinding the huge cables connected to the bucket. Other motors rotate
the whole assembly and move it. We all visited the operator control
room, as well as a second empty control room. Inside the machine, the
noise was loud enough to necessitate the use of earplugs. After
visiting the dragline, Mr. Hendon took us all to a second bucket no
longer in use, where I took the group photograph shown here.

After this part of the tour, Mr. Hendon
then led us all to an area
where we could search for plant fossils. Like many other sites in
Walker and Jefferson Counties, plant fossils from the Carboniferous
period are present in abundance at Cedrum. Mr. Hendon first pointed
out to us a couple of fossil stumps of arborescent lycopods, one of
which was partly removed by BPS members James Lowery and Danny Brooks.
The piece Danny Brooks showed me weighed about 100 lbs and showed
characteristic
scars of a likely Lepidodendron. Interestingly, the cross section of
the
stump showed scars as well, but I am not sure exactly what these
represent.
Danny has very graciously donated the specimen to the Southern
Environmental
Center, who plan a special display.

Other items found at the site included numerous
medullary casts of the
familiar Calamites, a member of the horsetail phylum. The largest piece
shown to me was about 8 inches long and about 4 inches in diameter.
All of the pieces I saw, including a small one I found myself, showed
well-defined linear furrows and ridges aligned parallel to the
direction
of the stem. The raised furrows represent vascular bundles of the
plant, and
are basically inverse impressions of the life features. The narrower
ridges,
also inverse, are known as medullary rays. The casts represent the
inner
pith cavities of the plant, which were either hollow or had only soft
tissue that quickly decayed. When these cavities filled with mud, the
mud solidified and preserved an impression of the

inside of the plant.
Some specimens looked broken at a node, a place where leaves and
branches could emanate from the plant. The node is a horizontal ridge,
and the small specimen I show here has two nodes. Sometimes a node may
be preserved
in cross-section. On splitting one rock, I found a large node
impression
with thin radiating structures, probably leaves. However, none of the
inner structure of the node was preserved in this piece.

One of the most interesting fossils I noticed at this site was a
modest-sized bark impression of Lepidophloios, a subgenus of the
Lepidodendra. The leaf scars of Lepidophloios are very much like those
of a normal Lepidodendron stem, only the scars are elongated
horizontally, rather than vertically. Although I have read that fossils
of Lepidophloios are the most commonly found plant fossil in Alabama,
it was the first time I had seen a definitive example. It was easily
distinguished from the better known Lepidodendron.

Also found at
the site were various seed fern impressions, the most familiar ones I
noticed being Alethopteris and Neuropteris. The latter were often found
as disconnected and relatively large pinnules. One BPS attendee showed
me a nice slab of intact Alethopteris ferns. He was so happy to have
the slab, and it was so fragile, that he said he was going to carry it
home on his lap! Related to these ferns, I believe I found what appear
to be two branches of a likely tree-sized seed fern plant. The branches
have a brownish color with some carbonized plant material remaining,
and bear no resemblance to the branches of Calamites or the arborescent
lycopods. No fern impressions are attached to these branches, but I
have seen other similar specimens having attached ferns.

Easily the most spectacular find of this trip was a 300-400 pound
arborescent lycopod stump found by James Foshee. The specimen is about
1 foot thick and tapers from a diameter of about 2 feet to 3 feet from
top to bottom. All around the rim, the stump is covered with beautiful,
well-defined leaf scars, the appearance of which suggests to me that
the specimen is of the genus Lepidodendron. From its curved shape, it
looks like a part of the lower base of a much larger trunk. The
preservation is as good as any I have seen of these trunks in museums.
A happy day for James!

In summary, this was a really great field
trip for the BPS. If it had not
been so hot, it might have been even better!

May 29, 1999 - Carboniferous Fossils - Jefferson Co, AL

Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa, Alabama

The field trip on May 29, 1999, was to an abandoned strip mine in Kimberly that is now being re-excavated by the owner of the Warrior site which was described in the report of the March 27, 1999, BPS field trip. This is a new site for the BPS and we were most likely the first people to seriously look for fossils in the area, at least since the mine was active.

Although the postcard for the trip stated that we would be visiting the same Warrior site as on March 27, it was understood at the last BPS meeting that we would visit the new site and check it out. We decided to visit the new site first and left it as an option for attendees to visit the site on their own, since that site is much easier to find. About 15 people, including BPS members and guests, attended today's field trip.

--Edited by Vicki Lais

hillside The site turned out to be a particularly good one for finding a variety of Carboniferous period plant fossils. The area was so vast that even with 15 people we really did not explore it all. Many rock piles surround an open area where we could park our vehicles. Fossils of Calamites, including 3D stem casts, stem impressions, foliage, and cones were abundant in some areas.

Ferns seemed less abundant, but good specimens were found nonetheless. Finely detailed fossils of the top foliage of arborescent lycopods were found in abundance. Bark impressions of Lepidodendron and Sigillaria were also found.

The main difference between this site and the Warrior site is that the fossils at the latter site are concentrated in a small area that is easy to explore.

At the Kimberly site, the fossils were spread out over a much larger area and finding them required a great deal of tenacious searching. Also, since you could not necessarily drive your vehicle up any of the steep hills, carrying a large fossil to your car was challenging to say the least.

There were numerous highlights of this trip. One attendee showed me a rare (so far as I know) cast fossil of a small part of a stem of Cordaites, a gymnospermous tree with no modern relatives. The stem of this tree consists of a series of horizontal ridges and is easily distinguished from Calamites, but I had never seen one this nice before. Some very nice pieces of Calamites itself were found. The inimitable Ken Hoyle showed several of us two spectacular Calamites casts he found, each about 6 inches long and 4-5 inches in diameter. The two pieces were obviously part of the same plant, but he could not find any of the missing parts.

Steve, Dena, and Molly Hand were also very successful in finding good 3D casts of Calamites, as well as a nice piece of Asterophyllites equisetiformis, the characteristic foilage of the branches of Calamites. Ken Wills, who previously spoke to the BPS last year, found a nice piece with many Calamostachys impressions, representing the cones of Calamites. Christina and Larry Hensley found a big rock with a stunning impression of the bark of a Lepidendron arborescent lycopod. It was beautiful but too big for anyone to carry. 3D casts of the rhizophore of Stigmaria ficoides, the root system of arborescent lycopods, were also found by several attendees, including myself. The largest, 15 inches long, was found by Bruce Relihan.

This small piece shows impressions of the upper branches of an arborescent lycopod.

Partial cast fossil stump of Sigillaria, an arborescent lycopod. The dark scars are the usual parichnos scars associated with this genus. The stump is about 1 foot in diameter

Particularly interesting were the stump fossils found at this site. On the top of a hill, I found three fossil stumps of Sigillaria. All three pieces showed the characteristic parallel bands of parichnos scars. The two largest pieces are about a foot in diameter and 3 to 6 inches thick. A smaller piece showed the strongest bands. I managed to get these to my car with difficulty, and needed help with one piece. Gerry Badger had a tougher time, however. He found a much bigger stump of Lepidodendron and practically had to roll it down to his car from some distant point. The stump looked to be 70-80 lbs in weight and showed weak scars. A very much larger stump was found by several others near the base of a hill. I heard it was maybe 30 inches in diameter. But by the time I heard about it, I had no energy to go and see it! Ken Wills and Bruce Relihan also found partial stump casts.

In summary, this was quite an interesting field trip. When I first "scouted" out this site in April, I was not sure we would find much since casual searching during a period of one hour did not reveal many fossils. The intensive searching by attendees on this trip was much more revealing about the site, and showed it to really be nearly as good as the Warrior site. It will be worthy of a second visit in the future.

March 27, 1999 - Jefferson Co, AL

Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa, Alabama

The field trip on March 27, 1999 was the second organized BPS trip to a construction site near Warrior. The trip was attended by about 25 people, mainly from Birmingham, Huntsville, Tuscaloosa, the Florence area, and the University of North Alabama. Attendees included BPS members, guests, children, professors, and students, and the day was sunny, clear, and warm.

View of the site from across the road.

	Fossil hunters at the main rock pile where Lepidodendron and Sigillaria specimens were abundant.

The site was first identified as being a source of Carboniferous-period plant fossils by BPS member Gerry Badger, and the first BPS field trip to the site took place on November 15, 1997. Although various BPS members and probably others have visited the site at various times during the past year, the site has changed so much that on March 27, the site was better than it had ever been before as far as numbers and quality of plant fossils are concerned.

The most abundant plant fossils found during our most recent visit were bark impressions of the giant arborescent lycopods Lepidodendron and Sigillaria. These were mainly found in rock piles around the area of a northeast wall of rock. Large slabs showed the familiar Lepidodendron leaf scars, which look like fish scales. In many cases the scars were clear and well-defined, making the specimens extremely beautiful examples. On close inspection, the leaf scars show characteristic bundle and parichnos scars representing leaf attachment points, and many of the pieces are probably of the same species. However, after checking various books I have not yet identified the exact species at Warrior. It is clear also that more than one species of Lepidodendron is present at this site. It is also interesting that specimens of Lepidodendron at Warrior came in both direct and inverse impressions. In direct impressions, the leaf scars are raised, and are more like molds of the original object. In most pieces, however, the leaf scars are simply inverse impressions of the original raised scars, and therefore appear as depressions in the fossil.

Example of decorticated Sigillaria fossil (Syringodendron) showing pairs of parichnos scars along parallel bands.

The Sigillaria specimens are more abundant now at this site than they were on November 15, 1997. They are characterized by parallel bands of leaf scars distinctly different from the spirally arranged scars seen on Lepidodendron, although a spiral arrangement may still be present. Several species were found, but I have not been able to make exact identifications. Sigillaria specimens attendees found included not only outer bark impressions, where the leaf scars are roundish and almost overlapping, but also beautiful decorticated impressions, direct and inverse, where only parichnos scars are seen either as small spots or close pairs of small spots. These are as known as Syringodendron. The decorticated specimens are cases where the outer bark is gone, so they represent an inner bark layer.

Also abundant at this site, but not necessarily found in the rock piles, were several types of seed ferns characteristic of the period. These were found at a specific level of the east rock wall less than a foot above the ground level and about 20 feet from the rock piles. The ferns found included beautiful examples of Eusphenopteris, Mariopteris, Neuropteris, and Alethopteris form genera, but I have not yet determined exact species. Because many of these were found in situ, they were still beautifully preserved with dark carbonaceous remains of the original plant material and fine details of vein systems in individual pinnules. Several attendees spent much of their time searching for ferns at the rock wall, and many were found. According to Dave Kopaska-Merkel, one young person, whose first name was Jonathan, split a large slab and found some very nice large ferns inside. Although I am not aware of any examples found during this trip, the site also is known for having Lyginopteris ferns which are distinctly different from the others. Several different species of Sphenopteris ferns have also been found in the past.

	View of rock wall on east side of site where ferns were found in situ.

	Typical example of a set of ferns extracted from the above part of the wall.

Fossils of the well-known horsetail, Calamites, have also been found in abundance at this site. Several attendees (including myself) found three-dimensional Calamites stems further down the same rock wall where the ferns were found. Dave Kopaska-Merkel found a nearly foot-long Calamites specimen embedded in a larger rock. Also found were excellent specimens of the foliage of Calamites, including a fine small piece of (probable) Asterophyllites equisetiformis shown to me by Gerry Badger. At least three different species of Asterophyllites have been found at this site.

There were a few interesting highlights from the trip. Wayne Canis, several of his students from the University of North Alabama, and guest Richard Keyes of Huntsville, found a large and extremely beautiful example of a lycopod root system, Stigmaria, with dozens of root impressions emanating from the sides and clear deep small depressions or root scars on the main body, known as a rhizophore. The fossil was so fragile that Richard went off site to buy a can of spray glue to insure the piece would hold together during the drive home. Also found today were large fossil "stumps" and logs of arborescent lycopod stems. Gerry Badger located a 64 pound stump in the one of the upper rock piles at the site, and Wayne Canis and one of his students each found a similar piece. Particularly interesting was a long, nearly vertically-standing log found in an upper rock wall near the back of the site. Except for the log, no other fossils were obvious in this wall. Gerry Badger heroically tried to get the main body of the log off with a hammer. This

Gerry Badger at the big "log" on a wall in rear of site.

was at great risk since the specimen was under a large rock overhang! The job was not easy and afterward I saw the specimen in pieces in the back of Gerry's car, but he still was upbeat about it.Later, I found another stump fossil in a rock wall on the north side of the main site level. It, too, was the only fossil noticed in that particular area, although several of us thought we saw the end of a highly flattened stump still in the wall but much higher up in the same area. The stump I found is about a foot long and weighs 77 pounds. Unlike the others found, it is covered with hundreds of small scars and impressions, indicating a fairly definite identification as an arborescent lycopod cast. These "stumps" and logs represent cases where a hollow cavity left by the stem was filled with mud which later solidified and preserved the general shape as well as any inner details. They are not "petrified" in the usual sense.

77 pound arborescent lycopod cast found near north rock wall.

In summary, this field trip was a very enjoyable experience for all who attended. On a wonderful day, we all experienced a part of Alabama's past and took home the beautiful relics of a bygone era of Alabama natural history.