Beekite ring
Mystery shape found in Pennsylvanian
shale --
Identified
Middle Pennsylvanian Series
Desmoinesian Stage - Marmaton Group
Altamont Formation - Lake Neosho Shale Member
St. Louis, Missouri
Beekite ring
Beekite ring: Collected and photograph by Scott Schaefer
A friend found this interesting shape while sifting the shale.
Barry Sutton
Viewer Comments
This looks more like a specimen of a cryptocrystalline
quarts mineral called Beekite.
We commonly find it here in Nebraska, especially on shells of productoid and
atrypoid
brachiopods and on some crinoid cups. Sometimes we find loose examples as
your
specimen. Loope and Watkins in the paper listed below described this phenomenon
and related it to Pennsylvanian fossils from Utah and Nebraska. As a quick
test, if you
rub it across a piece of glass, it will scratch the glass if it is beekite.
A drop of vinegar
would produce a fizzy if it is carbonate, but be sure any residual carbonate
is gone.
Loope, D. B., and Watkins, D. K., 1989, Pennsylvanian
fossils replaced by red chert:
early oxidation of pyritic precursors: Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, v.
59, no. 3,
p. 375-386.
Roger Pabian
Reply
In my original post I wrote that the shape was familiar,
however, I couldn't remember
why or where. Now I remember ... I never found or collected these Beekite
rings
separately. I remember seeing these rings on badly weathered Mississippian
corals
(and probably other fossils). The reason I couldn't remember (why or where)
was
because I was focused on the individual specimen and not the coiled rope-like
features
that sometimes are noticed on some fossils.
See Bill Rushlau's page: Beekite
rings on brachiopods
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