Fossils from Wisconsin. Fossil D=70cm. From Geology Feb. 2002.
Fossil dealer Dan Damrow discovered the jellyfish in 1998 and four years later co-wrote an article (Geology, February 2002) describing the animals with paleontologist James Hagadorn. Technically known as medusae, the jellyfish were pelagic carnivores that moved into the littoral zone to hunt but a receding tide could trap the animals in great masses on the beach. As the tide ebbed and returned, fine-grained sediment covered the jellyfish, preserving the rarely preserved soft tissues. Ripple marks surround and in a few cases pass through the fossils. Damrow and Hagadorn report that the fossils were found in seven, flat-lying beds, which covered perhaps a million years of time, and that they provide new insights into the Cambrian.
The Krukowski family own the quarries and sell the fossiliferous rock under the trade names Highland Brown Antique, Sandy Creek and a sawn version called Cambrian Cream. Uses include architectural veneer stone, thin veneers, outcropping, steps, flagstone, and landscape retaining walls. The sawn version is transferred into countertop slabs, cladding, flooring and a variety of architectural and landscaping products. Because no one had recognized the fossils until the Damrow saw them, many people could have the fossils in their homes without knowing it.
jellyfish fossils, who would have thought that. most interesting story. jb