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Description: | Specimen of a fossil graptolite, Dimorphograptus confertus, collected from the Windermere Supergroup, Stockdale Group, Skelgill Formation of Early Silurian, Llandovery, Rhuddanian - Aeronian age from Skelgill, Cumbria (NW England). Collected by E.J. Garwood.
Numerous graptolite skeletons are well displayed on the surface of this black slate. Graptolites are extinct marine animals that lived in colonies, building delicate skeletons. These were attached to floats which enabled the graptolite animals to live close to the surface of the sea where there was plentiful food. After death, the floats and the graptolite animals decayed away just leaving the skeletons to sink and litter the seabed. Apart from graptolites, very few other fossils are found in these slates. This suggests that they formed in dark deep water where no bottom living animals could exist.
The specimen was found in Cumbria.
It is from the Silurian period (443 - 418 million years ago) | Publisher: | Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums | Subjects: | Graptolithina Classification: Animalia E.J. Chordata Hemichordata Garwood | Temporal: | Silurian period (443 - 418 million years ago) | Source: | Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums | Identifier: | http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/geofinder/se... | Go to resource |
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