This is the “Fossil Friday” post #72.  Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website.  We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com.  Please include a short description or story.  Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world!

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We are stepping away from Mazon Creek for this week, but we’ll be back very soon with some very interesting specimens.  For today, Western Illinois and Galena are the place and the Ordovician Period is the time.  Tom Brashers-Krug sent me some photos of some excellent fossils he found while on vacation in the Galena Territories.  The photos below are of a Maclurites and a Hormotoma he found in a road cut east of Galena.  He posted a a great trip report in a thread entitled “Productive Galena, Illinois and Graf, Iowa Excursions” over on the Fossil Forum.  Here is a summary of the story he sent me.  Awesome finds and great story, thanks for the contribution, Tom!

I had some fortuitous success on my vacation to Galena. We stayed in an AirBnB in the Galena Territories about 8 miles East of Galena proper. There was a small road cut on a road about half a mile from where we were staying. I spent several hours poking around there. The road cut rock was likely from the Galena Group, possibly the Milbrig k-Bentonite bed. 

Most of the time was spent searching, but I found two really cool fossil molds: a Maclurites (I think it’s either a magnus or bigsbyi.), and a Hormotoma. 

Hormotoma