Fossil Mountain (Utah)
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Fossil Mountain (Utah)
Fossil Mountain is a peak in the south end of the Confusion Range in Millard County, Utah. It is a well-known and popular location with rockhounds and fossil hunters because of the variety and abundance of Ordovician fossils found on it. Fossil Mountain has also been the site of paleontological research. Sedimentary strata of the Ely Springs Dolomite, Eureka Quartzite, Crystal Peak Dolomite, Watson Ranch Quartzite, and the highly fossiliferous upper Pogonip Group are exposed on it slopes and by its cliffs.Cope, M., 2023''Geosites – Fossil Mountain, Millard County, Utah.''''Utah Geological Survey Notes'', 55(1), pp. 10-11. History Frank Beckwith was the first person to appreciate and publicize the abundant Ordovician fossils at Fossil Mountain along with the abundant Cambrian Wheeler Shale, fossils around Antelope Springs. Around 1910, he started as a cashier at the first bank in the newly founded town of Delta. From Delta, Utah, he and his friend, Charles Kelly, roamed the des ...
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List Of Mountains In Utah
Mountains in Utah are numerous and have varying elevations and prominences. Kings Peak (Utah), Kings Peak, in the Uinta Mountains in Duchesne County, Utah, is the highest point in the state and has the greatest prominence. It has elevation and prominence . It also has topographic isolation of , highest amongst summits of Utah having at least 500 meters of prominence. For lists of the top 50 peaks in Utah by elevation, prominence, and topographic isolation, see List of mountain peaks of Utah. This "List of mountains in Utah" should include all of those (but does not yet) and more. To see locations of all mountains having coordinates in this article (primarily from just three counties in the state, so far) together in one map, click on "Map all coordinates using OpenStreetMap, OSM" at the right side of this page. Partial lists of mountains in just a few of List of counties in Utah, Utah's 29 counties are below. Salt Lake County Mountains in Salt Lake County, Utah ...
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Wheeler Shale
The Wheeler Shale (named by Charles Walcott) is a Cambrian ( 507  Ma) fossil locality world-famous for prolific agnostid and ''Elrathia kingii'' trilobite remains (even though many areas are barren of fossils) and represents a Konzentrat-Lagerstätte. Varied soft bodied organisms are locally preserved, a fauna (including ''Naraoia'', ''Wiwaxia'' and ''Hallucigenia'') and preservation style ( carbonaceous film) normally associated with the more famous Burgess Shale. As such, the Wheeler Shale also represents a Konservat-Lagerstätten. Together with the Marjum Formation and lower Weeks Formation, the Wheeler Shale forms of limestone and shale exposed in one of the thickest, most fossiliferous and best exposed sequences of Middle Cambrian rocks in North America. At the type locality of Wheeler Amphitheater, House Range, Millard County, western Utah, the Wheeler Shale consists of a heterogeneous succession of highly calcareous shale, shaley limestone, mudstone and t ...
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Receptaculitid
''Receptaculites'' is the name-bearing genus for an extinct group of conspicuous benthic marine genera, the receptaculitids (formally Receptaculitaceae or Receptaculitidae), that lived from the Early Ordovician through the Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years, from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.902 Mya. It is the s ... period, peaking in the Middle Ordovician. The group's phylogenetic origin has long been obscure, with some arguing that they were calcareous algae, probably of the order Dasycladales.Byrnes, J.G. 1968. Notes on the nature and environmental significance of the Receptaculitaceae. Lethaia, vol. 1, p. 368-381. Receptaculitids lived in warm, shallow seas, but consensus disagreeing. They have been described from all continents except Antarctica. In some areas they were important reef-formers, and they also occur ...
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Cystoid
Cystoidea was defined as a class of extinct paleozoic blastozoan echinoderms established to encompass stalked taxa that were neither crinoids nor blastoids. It was shown to be polyphyletic in the late 1960s but continues to be used even in recent (as of 2022) literature to discuss both rhombiferans and diploporitans. History The concept of Cystoidea has a complex history, with many emendations from its original conception. Early versions included the homalozoans, eocrinoids, paracrinoids, blastoids, and edrioblastoids. By 1967 the modern usage encompassing only rhombiferans and diploporitans had been established, although questions remained regarding the possible inclusion of blastoids. Despite these removals, speculation continued as to whether cystoids were ancestral to blastoids, crinoids, or echinoids. Work published in 1967 and 1968 questioned whether Cystoidea formed a natural group, and in 1972 the former orders Rhombifera and Diploporita were elevated to class rank a ...
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Nautiloid
Nautiloids are a group of cephalopods (Mollusca) which originated in the Late Cambrian and are represented today by the living ''Nautilus'' and ''Allonautilus''. Fossil nautiloids are diverse and species rich, with over 2,500 recorded species. They flourished during the early Paleozoic era, when they constituted the main predatory animals. Early in their evolution, nautiloids developed an extraordinary diversity of shell shapes, including coiled morphologies and giant straight-shelled forms ( orthocones). No orthoconic and only a handful of coiled species, the nautiluses, survive to the present day. In a broad sense, "nautiloid" refers to a major cephalopod subclass or collection of subclasses (Nautiloidea ''sensu lato''). Nautiloids are typically considered one of three main groups of cephalopods, along with the extinct ammonoids (ammonites) and living coleoids (such as squid, octopus, and kin). While ammonoids and coleoids are monophyletic clades with exclusive ancestor-desce ...
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Genera
Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus. :E.g. '' Panthera leo'' (lion) and '' Panthera onca'' (jaguar) are two species within the genus '' Panthera''. ''Panthera'' is a genus within the family Felidae. The composition of a genus is determined by taxonomists. The standards for genus classification are not strictly codified, so different authorities often produce different classifications for genera. There are some general practices used, however, including the idea that a newly defined genus should fulfill these three criteria to be descriptively useful: # monophyly – all descendants of an ancestral taxon are grouped together (i.e. phylogenetic analysis should clearly demonstrate both monophyly and validity as a separate lineag ...
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Paleozoic
The Paleozoic ( , , ; or Palaeozoic) Era is the first of three Era (geology), geological eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. Beginning 538.8 million years ago (Ma), it succeeds the Neoproterozoic (the last era of the Proterozoic Eon) and ends 251.9 Ma at the start of the Mesozoic Era. The Paleozoic is subdivided into six period (geology), geologic periods (from oldest to youngest), Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous and Permian. Some geological timescales divide the Paleozoic informally into early and late sub-eras: the Early Paleozoic consisting of the Cambrian, Ordovician and Silurian; the Late Paleozoic consisting of the Devonian, Carboniferous and Permian. The name ''Paleozoic'' was first used by Adam Sedgwick (1785–1873) in 1838 to describe the Cambrian and Ordovician periods. It was redefined by John Phillips (geologist), John Phillips (1800–1874) in 1840 to cover the Cambrian to Permian periods. It is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek ''palaiós'' (πΠ...
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Cephalopod
A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan Taxonomic rank, class Cephalopoda (Greek language, Greek plural , ; "head-feet") such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral symmetry, bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head, and a set of cephalopod arm, arms or tentacles (muscular hydrostats) modified from the primitive molluscan foot. Fishers sometimes call cephalopods "inkfish", referring to their common ability to squirt Cephalopod ink, ink. The study of cephalopods is a branch of malacology known as teuthology. Cephalopods became dominant during the Ordovician period, represented by primitive nautiloids. The class now contains two, only distantly related, Extant taxon, extant subclasses: Coleoidea, which includes octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish; and Nautiloidea, represented by ''Nautilus (genus), Nautilus'' and ''Allonautilus''. In the Coleoidea, the molluscan shell has been internalized or is absent, where ...
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Gastropod
Gastropods (), commonly known as slugs and snails, belong to a large Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, freshwater, and from the land. There are many thousands of species of sea snails and sea slug, slugs, as well as freshwater snails, freshwater limpets, land snails and slugs. The class Gastropoda is a diverse and highly successful class of mollusks within the phylum Mollusca. It contains a vast total of named species, second only to the insects in overall number. The fossil history of this class goes back to the Furongian, Late Cambrian. , 721 family (taxonomy), families of gastropods are known, of which 245 are extinct and appear only in the fossil record, while 476 are currently neontology, extant living fossil, with or without a fossil record. Gastropoda (previously known as univalves and sometimes spelled "Gasteropoda") are a major part of the phylum Mo ...
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Ostracod
Ostracods, or ostracodes, are a Class (biology), class of the crustacean, Crustacea (class Ostracoda), sometimes known as seed shrimp. Some 33,000 species (only 13,000 of which are extant taxon, extant) have been identified,Brandão, S.N.; Antonietto, L.S; Nery, D.G.; Santos, S.G.; Karanovic, I. (2023). World Ostracoda Database. Accessed at https://www.marinespecies.org/ostracoda on 2023-09-12. grouped into 7 valid orders. They are small crustaceans, typically around in size, but varying from , the latter in the case of the marine ''Gigantocypris.'' The largest known freshwater species is ''Megalocypris princeps'', which reach 8 mm in length. In most cases, their bodies are flattened from side to side and protected by a bivalve-like valve or "shell" made of chitin, and often calcium carbonate. The family Entocytheridae and many planktonic forms do not have calcium carbonate. The hinge of the two valves is in the upper (dorsal) region of the body. Ostracods are grouped toget ...
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Brachiopod
Brachiopods (), phylum (biology), phylum Brachiopoda, are a phylum of animals that have hard "valves" (shells) on the upper and lower surfaces, unlike the left and right arrangement in bivalve molluscs. Brachiopod valves are hinged at the rear end, while the front can be opened for feeding or closed for protection. Two major categories are traditionally recognized, articulate and inarticulate brachiopods. The word "articulate" is used to describe the tooth-and-groove structures of the valve-hinge which is present in the articulate group, and absent from the inarticulate group. This is the leading diagnostic skeletal feature, by which the two main groups can be readily distinguished as fossils. Articulate brachiopods have toothed hinges and simple, vertically oriented opening and closing muscles. Conversely, inarticulate brachiopods have weak, untoothed hinges and a more complex system of vertical and oblique (diagonal) muscles used to keep the two valves aligned. In many brachio ...
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Trilobite
Trilobites (; meaning "three-lobed entities") are extinction, extinct marine arthropods that form the class (biology), class Trilobita. One of the earliest groups of arthropods to appear in the fossil record, trilobites were among the most successful of all early animals, existing in oceans for almost 270million years, with over 22,000 species having been described. Because trilobites had wide diversity and an easily fossilized mineralised exoskeleton made of calcite, they left an extensive fossil record. The study of their fossils has facilitated important contributions to biostratigraphy, paleontology, evolution, evolutionary biology, and plate tectonics. Trilobites are placed within the clade Artiopoda, which includes many organisms that are morphologically similar to trilobites, but are largely unmineralised. The relationship of Artiopoda to other arthropods is uncertain. Trilobites evolved into many ecological niches; some moved over the seabed as predators, scavengers, or ...
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