A Rolling Stone Gathers Moss Animals and Sea Lillies

The Kope Formation of Northern Kentucky has many hardgrounds that allow the study of life in the late Ordovician Period in ways that individual fossil specimens do not provide. They give a unique look at an instant frozen in time. In the case of the specimen below, tumbling cobble stone has bryozoans and crinoids encrusting both sides. Apparently, this stone had turned over several times and had been repopulated with bryozoans encrusting the remaining crinoid holdfasts and new crinoids making homes on top of the remaining bryozoans. Together, these epizoans provided a substrait for later generations of encrusters.

Click on the above images to see a larger view.

This specimen is available for study. Contact Bill Heimbrock at billheim@cinci.rr.com.

Click here to return to Bill Heimbrock's Contributions to Fossils On File.