OLD COLLECTION FOSSIL CRINOID PLATE: PEMBINA HILLS, NORTHEAST NORTH DAKOTA - NR!

Description

Over the past months I have been working my way through the 50+ years of minerals that have been accumulating in my storage areas, and I keep coming up with things I forgot about a long time ago.  So this piece comes from the 1990s when we were living in North Dakota about a half mile from the Canadian border. Back then we used to do rock shows in North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and then east to Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Each summer we would do the biggest rock show in North Dakota down in Bismarck.  One year during the show I traded a bunch of stuff to a local husband and wife collector team for some ND fossils that they had collected.  There were crinoid plates from NE North Dakota, Fossil Teredo Wood chunks from the SW part of the state, fossil ginko leaf plates, fossil sequoia pine cones and other goodies that I got from them for fossils and minerals from other parts of the world.
So while going through the accumulation of a lifetime down in the storeroom recently, I found a flat of crinoid specimens, some fossil pine cones and a big old half log of fossil Teredo wood hiding in some old boxes.  Here is an offering of a cool crinoid plate from an area in the Pembina Hills in northeastern North Dakota that was collected by this couple and that I have had hiding in boxes in the storeroom since around 1997 or so.
The specimen is comprised of large masses of what look like thin interconnected disks in elongated chains growing out of the sides of a tan limestone matrix.  These disks are what actually formed the stems of a member of the phylum Echinodermata and they are what is known as crinoids, or more appropriately as sea lilies and feather stars.  The stems are often better preserved then the flower like structures that these stems supported in the ancient seas they grew in, so often all that remains in the fossil record are mounds of these stems made of small thin, hollow round discs.
The specimen measures 9.1 x 5.3 x 3.2 cm in size (about 3.5 x 2 x 1.25 inches), weighs 4.2 ounces, and it comes professionally labeled and ready for immediate display.  This piece shows a wealth of crinoid stems where the crinoids have become fossilized when a flood or other event caused a massive runoff of soil which covered the crinoids and prevented them from decomposing due to an absence of oxygen millions of years ago.  The matrix here is limestone and parts of the piece also are mildly fluorescent.
Crinoids were most common from the Ordovician up to the Triassic, (416-250 million years ago) at which point the Permian-Triassic mass extinction nearly wiped them out. They recovered slowly during the Mesozoic (when dinosaurs walked the earth), and they are still with us today.  Even though they look like plants, crinoids are animals that live in marine (salt-water sea or ocean) environments.  They are from the Phylum Echinodermata, along with sea urchins and starfish.  All of these animals have five-sided symmetry – meaning you can divide them into five similar looking parts.   The name “crinoid” comes from the Greek word “krinon” (meaning “a lily”), and “eidos” (meaning “form”).  Some types of crinoid were free-floating, able to move about with the wind and waves and these are known as "feather stars".
The type that is attached to the seafloor with a stalk like these are called "sea lilies".  Sea lilies have a simple body plan.   The calyx is the body portion, where the mouth, gut, and reproductive organs are.  Attached to the bottom of the calyx is a stem made of circular ossicles (calcified, bony material) held together with more connective tissue. At the base of the stem is a structure known as a "holdfast", which attached the crinoid to the seafloor. Apparently these crinoids are from the Cretaceous Period somewhere around 90 million years ago.
We are offering this fine specimen for a SUPER LOW starting bid and NO RESERVE, so lets have some fun!!  PayPal is our preferred method of payment, but we do accept most other common payment options, so you if have a question about our payment policy, just drop us a note.   Shipping will be calculated at cost based upon the package weight, buyers desired shipping method and ship-to location.
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