Crinoid Skeletal Debris

We explored a beautiful encrinite (a rock dominated by crinoid skeletal debris) exposed near Mount Carmel Junction about a 15 minute drive from our house.  The little star shaped fossils are extremely tiny but really cool.  The star shapes make up the stems of a sea plant.  I have determined that Addyson and I need a microscope to properly inspect our new finds!

Technical Info below:
The Middle Jurassic Carmel Formation, named after Mount Carmel, is well exposed in this area. Crinoid fossils are abundant in this unit, forming an encrinite in places. Crinoids have pentameral symmetry and here the stalks have broken down into tiny, individual star-shaped fossils (columnals). The crinoid is Isocrinus nicoleti, the first cosmopolitan crinoid reported from North American Jurassic strata (Tang et al. , 2007).

Isocrinus nicoleti is one of only three crinoid species known in the Jurassic of North America. (The others are I. wyomingensis and Seirocrinus subangularis.) Tang et al. (2000) showed that this species migrated into southwestern North America by moving southward through a very narrow seaway for thousands of kilometers. I. nicoleti had long stems and relatively small crowns, so it left us zillions of the columnals and very few calices. These washed into large subtidal dunes creating the cross-bedded encrinite.