Little Coal mine finds

[Kaleb]

I work in an underground coal mine here in utah and occasionally see some pretty interesting fossils. Today i saw a ten inch long probably 4 inch wide fern of some sort on the ceiling. I thought I might find something similar in what fell off the roof... 1 small leaf is all but I thought someone might think it's neat. I'll find something better and get it home in one piece one day.

[gregszybala]

Very cool!

[BabaORiley]

That is a real neat one. I have never seen a translucent one like that. Wow...millions of years right in your hand. Great find man...

[Lindenmeier-Man]

Kewl !

[redrocks]

Nice fossil find. That's cool alright

[painshill]

Nice find, although deserving of some better pictures perhaps. From what I can see those are “Pecopteris” leaves. Pecopteris is what’s known as a “form genus”, which means we assign fossil leaves and fronds from probably several hundred indeterminate plants into this genus, together with a species name where possible. But the classification is based on their shape and physical features, even though the plants they came from may only be loosely related to one another.

They’re from a mixture of fern types, including seed ferns and tree ferns, from low-growing ones up to those with heights of about 30 feet. Although often indeterminate (or uncertain) for the true genus in a taxonomic sense, many Pecopteris leaves seem to be representative of the extinct tree fern genus Psaronius.

You have probably around 300 million years of history in your hand.

[2ndoldman]

You are very fortunate in where you work. WOW.

[Jethro355]

Awesome!

[Kaleb]

Thanks for all the comments no one i work south seems to find any of this interesting. I found a dinosaur footprint today in the ceiling. The middle large toe was falling off so I took it for my boy. I think tomorrow I might just have to take my phone down with me to get some pictures. This new area we are working in is amazing and makes it very difficult for someone like me to get any work done.

[Cecilia]

People’s eyes usually roll up in their head at my work. Last week I had to be in a courtroom (because of work), and an old friend saw me looking at this site, and he said “you need to get a life”. Lol😀

[Kaleb]

That's funny I hear that quite a bit from freinds

[CMD]

As painshill noted, likely about 300 million years old, which tells me Roger feels it's Upper Carboniferous in age, aka the Pennsylvanian Period. Most coal fields in the eastern US( I know you are in Utah) are that age. But, you also mention a dinosaur footprint. That would be much younger then 300 million, and certainly Utah is a dinosaur fossil rich state. I remember seeing nice dinosaur prints in Capital Reef National Park.

[painshill]

Yes, Charlie's correct. Although pectopterid plants were still around after the Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian), they became extinct during the Permian and so couldn't be younger than 250 million years, or contemporary with dinosaurs. The rise of dinosaurs began in the Triassic, around 240 million years ago and doesn't overlap with pectopterid plants. That however is the strict scientific definition of dinosaurs in the clade 'Dinosauria'. There were other animals capable of making similar footprints in the Permian which non-scientists might call dinosaurs, such as large synapsid reptiles that aren't within the Dinosauria clade.

I made an assumption about the age of the plants based on a couple of not very clear pictures, which may not be correct. Your coal mine may be of a later age that's consistent with dinosaurs (or may be overlaid with strata that are of the right age), in which case the plants would be something other than pecopterid. Some more information and better pictures might help us reconcile this, if it's of interest for you.

[SGT.Digger]

That’s some neat stuff. Could ha e been a fern that was growing right near where Noah cut down the timber to make the ARK . Awesome history

[SDhunter]

Be cool if you could bring home a footprint

[painshill]

Especially if it was Noah's. LOL

[Kaleb]

My boss has a footprint at his house one day I will find one that I can get. The only problem is their always in the ceiling which makes it a little scary to try and get it out.

[Kaleb]

Here is a poor picture of the footprint. It was a little hard to get the picture die to the fact my head lamp is on my hat and was shining on the phone.

[painshill]

I completely understand your difficulty in getting decent pics... but that could be Noah's footprint, or a dinosaur, or anything in between. It must be much more exciting to find them underground than by splitting open exposed rocks on the surface.

Here's one of mine. Theropod dinosaur - three-toed, pointing right... but with the advantage of sunlight and a light-coloured matrix.

[Cecilia]

Yes. Yes!