Crinoids Then and Now

2019-03-23T06:06:50Z

I'm back at work after Fogcon and have several designs that I've been working on either finished or in last stages. I'll have a photo of the tad pole galaxy up after the astronomer who commissioned it receives it.

I put up the photo of a stone that was crinoid fossil last time and then I got more interested in crinoids. Quotes below are from Wikipedia.

There are only about 600 extant crinoid species, but they were much more abundant and diverse in the past. Some thick limestone beds dating to the mid- to late-Paleozoic are almost entirely made up of disarticulated crinoid fragments.

Crinoids are marine animals that make up the class Crinoidea of the echinoderms (phylum Echinodermata). The name comes from the Greek word krinon, "a lily", and eidos, "form". They live in both shallow water and in depths as great as 9,000 meters (30,000 ft).Those crinoids which in their adult form are attached to the sea bottom by a stalk are commonly called sea lilies. The unstalked forms are called feather stars or comatulids.

This is close up from the stone.

The two images below are living crinoids. They are stunning.

And these are the fossils from millions of years ago - like the pieces in the stones

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Fossil Opal Clam Shell

2013-04-03T04:16:51Z

I've had a beautiful opal fossilized clam shell that's from millions of years ago when Australia was a sea in my collection. It's been sitting with a group of things I see every day for 15 years. To my surprise, I discovered that I wanted to create something with it more than I wanted to keep it personally.

I just finished carving the wax. It will be dark (not black) silver with a coral and opal cephalopod (time appropriate). The coral is set with a small ruby and a small emerald.

It feels really good to have made art with it.

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laurieopal

Crinoids Then and Now

Fossil Opal Clam Shell