Fossil or rock quarry tool mark?

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chewbacca said:
Porky-

I figured you were a yooper with that name, but based on the quote, were you down by the high line road in Lemont? Bluff Road by the old smoke stack in the flag stone quarries?
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Not Bluff Road but very near there. Over by Turnabout Pizza entrance into the Lemont Quarries along the I&M Canal.
I have been to the smokestack and all over that area on back to the Material Service site.
 
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I know nothing of the formation you are in, but I have a degree in Geoscience and work in several limestone quarries. Personally, I think that is too large to be some kind of crinoid. I would lean towards a Cephalopod of some type. I have a specimen in my garage that is flattened out and about 3 feet long, but it is not exactly like yours. Looks to me like an imprintation of a fossil that is no longer there.

I can think of no tooling in a limestone quarry that would leave such a mark. If the quarry was used for building stone, generally the stones were cut...not leaving a mark like that. If the quarry was used for aggregate production, well...it involves drilling and dynamite (ANFO today)...neither of which would leave such tool marks.

Of course, one little picture makes it hard to be definitive.
 
Nice Find :thumbup:

It is a Cephalopod. I am willing to bet is is Cyclendoceras sp.
I found a nice one when I was at Field Camp in Deadwood S. Dakota. I found it in the Whitewood Peak area.
I'll send you a pic when I find one later in the week :D
 
The area where the smokestack is can be seen in the second photo on this page> http://township.com/lemont/historical/PixPages/Quarries/Quarry1.htm
Probably to the right (out of sight) of the tracks and behind the rock pile. The photo I posted of the old road leading to the stack I'm told is where the tracks were at. That road follows the curve (to the left) of the tracks shown in photo 2 in the link.
 
Porky,

When I was a kid, we lived on Bluff Road, across from the forest preserve. The smoke stack I am talking about is a round one. Just north of the high line road. In the area the butchered when they put that overpass in a couple years back. We used to swim in those quarries all the time when we were kids. Good times!

Eat some turnabout pizza for me!
 
Perhaps the drill came into the rock at an angle, creating a V shape. As it drilled deeper the drill created a wider path as more material was available for removal. Kinda like when you drill a wood screw in at an angle. The deepest point looks like the end of an older style drill bit to me, IMHO?
 
This was sent to me by the local historical society located in one of the original churches in the town. This fossil is actually in one of the stones, mined accross town in the late 1800's, used in the church structure and was first noticed recently. This Church was built in 1861. Here's the "Story" page about the Church history > http://township.com/lemont/historical/Church_Story.htm And the Fossil page> http://www.township.com/lemont/historical/WhatsNew/Paint July2007.html
Here's the Fossil in their wall.
 
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Talfuchre said:
You guys have gone about this all wrong.

Just ask Doc what it is - he was around back then! :o



TF
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I want directions to the pond he drinks from! I feel like I'm starting to Fossilize. Someones going to find my bones in my lazyboy chair frame and a remote control in hand in a few million years.
 
chewbacca said:
Porky,

When I was a kid, we lived on Bluff Road, across from the forest preserve. The smoke stack I am talking about is a round one. Just north of the high line road. In the area the butchered when they put that overpass in a couple years back. We used to swim in those quarries all the time when we were kids. Good times!

Eat some turnabout pizza for me!
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You should Google Earth that area and see what they did to it :(. There's a highway going over the powerline road now. 300 feet west of Black Partridge Woods is where the bridge decking starts and goes all the way to the old airport over New Avenue.

Turnabout Pizza is still good. For them to be open for so many decades in that little old roadhouse speaks volumes about the pizza!
 
I have seen it first hand, makes me mad how they trashed that area. I guess that's the cost of progress.
 
When I saw it at first I thought it was a giant cephalopod (a straight ammonite?) like we showed student in field portion of the geology classes. It was a cast like in the original picture. But the last picture from the church wall looks like a crinoid to me (stem plus that basal thing that radiates to whatr looks liie tentacles).
 
my vote is on cephalopod. I will look around after I get some sleep and see if I have any pics or samples from my digs and such...
 
The local fossil expert in the area has responded with this after I sent him the photo's:

Hi, Richard

The fossil is a cephalopod impression. A cephalopod is a head-footed animal that lived in the warm seas covering this area during the silurian period ( 400 to 450 million years ago).
It lived in one section until it outgrew it then added another section and so on. Extending from the shell was the head and tentacles, and a breathing tube called a syphuncle. Belonging to the same group of animals are the octopus and squid. The material from the seas decaying matter eventually compressed over time and formed the limestone which encases the remains of the creatures that lived in the shallow sea. Hope this helps. Bev
 
Nice cephalopod find. I been fossil hunting in quarries for 14 years now and it is always exciting when you find something. My geological hammer is a little worn nowadays though. I guess that why I spent all that time on geology and anthropology lessons.
 
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