The Amature Paleontolgist's Guide to

Fossils in and around Maryland

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New Look

After years of languishing in obscurity, saddled with a novice design and buggy html code, Devonian.org has a new look.

This site started as and still is an exercise to test my web design skill while showcasing my small but beloved fossil collection. For you web geeks out there, I redid all the pages to using XHTML and CSS, so everything should behave with most browsers.

The geologic maps section is still old-skool html, but I'm working to AJAX-up that part to make it much much cooler.

If you want to comment or complain, you can Email me at John.Need@Gmail.com.

 

The Featured Fossil: Exogyra

Exogyrae were bivalves closely related to oysters. Like oysters (Ostrea), Exogyra was a Pteriomorph, meaning that it cemented itself to something or rested on the bottom. Unlike oysters it did not live in closely packed beds, but spread out on the sea floor. The other type of bivalve, known as Heteodonts, did not cement themselves to objects but burrowed into the mud.

Because the left side of the shell grew faster than the right, Exogyra's thick shell curved clockwise producing a spiral pattern.

 

Maryland's State Fossil

Ecphora gardnerae gardnerae is one of the more elegant fossil shells you can find in the Miocene deposits of Calvert Cliffs. It is also the official Maryland state fossil.

Ecphora gardnerae was a small snail that was first described in 1770 in the scientific publication Historiae Conchyliorum by Martin Lister. Ecphora gardnerae was originally thought to the same species as Ecphora quadricostata. In 1984, The Maryland State Assembly passed a resolution declaring Ecphora quadricostata the state fossil of Maryland. However the two snails were later declared to be separate species, so in October 1994, the State Assembly passed Chapter 688, Section 13-311 which declared Ecphora gardnerae to be the State fossil.