Carneyella ulrichi
Edrioasteroids are an extinct group of echinoderms - they’re related
to starfish, brittle stars, sea urchins, sand dollars, and sea cucumbers.
They are attractive and much-sought-after fossils among collectors.
Carneyella ulrichi is a rare edrioasteroid species that is known only in
the Maysvillian Stage (middle Upper Ordovician) of the Cincinnatian outcrop
area of northern Kentucky. Before spring 1998, the only known specimen on
Earth was the holotype (USNM S-3964, housed at the U.S. National Museum of
Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., USA). Carneyella
ulrichi was first named & described by Ray Bassler and William Shideler
in 1936 using the USNM S-3964 specimen, a partially disrupted skeleton
encrusting a Hebertella occidentalis brachiopod shell.
The most distinctive feature of Carneyella ulrichi
is the presence of numerous pointed tubercles covering the plates of the
skeleton.
Classification: Animalia, Echinodermata, Edrioasteroidea,
Isorophida, Hemicystitidae
Carneyella ulrichi Bassler & Shideler, 1936 edrioasteroid (above
& below; ~2.2 cm across), encrusting hardground. This is the first
specimen of this species found since ulrichi was first named.
An abundance of new Carneyella ulrichi material
has become available since the spring of 1998. The new material all comes
from the Maysville West outcrop, a large roadcut cut through Jersey Ridge along
Rt. 62/68 (formerly Rt. 3071), just south of Harsha Bridge over the Ohio
River, ~1 mile east of Moranburg, ~2 miles northwest of Maysville, northern
Mason County, northeastern Kentucky, USA. Maysville West consists of two
cuts: a larger, lower cut immediately north of the bridge over Lawrence Creek,
and a smaller, upper cut immediately south of the Lawrence Creek bridge. Carneyella
ulrichi has been found at both the upper & lower Maysville West cuts.
GPS of larger/northern cut: 38° 40.407’ North, 83° 47.830’ West.
The photos above show the discovery specimen for all
the new Carneyella ulrichi material. The discovery specimen was
found by Christian Steck in spring 1998, then a structural geology graduate
student at Ohio State University (Columbus, Ohio, USA). The specimen was
first identified as Carneyella ulrichi by James St. John, then a
paleontology graduate student at Ohio State. The species identification
was verified by Colin Sumrall, an edrioasteroid researcher at the Cincinnati
Museum Center (now at the University of Tennessee). The locality
has since been intensely quarried and collected by professional
paleontologists, geology students, commercial fossil collectors, and amateur
fossil collectors.
Carneyella ulrichi at Maysville West occurs on a limestone
hardground. The accompanying encrusting biota includes four other
edrioasteroids (Carneyella pilea, Streptaster vorticellatus,
Isorophus cincinnatiensis, and Curvitriordo stecki), crinoid
holdfasts, trepostome & cyclostome bryozoans, and cornulitid worm
tubes. Trypanites borings are also present.
Stratigraphically, the Carneyella ulrichi
hardground is from the ~mid-Bellevue Limestone (middle Maysvillian Stage, middle
Cincinnatian Series, middle Upper Ordovician). Several hardground
horizons have been identified in the lower to middle Bellevue Limestone at
Maysville West.
Carneyella ulrichi quarry dug out at southern shoulder of the
southeastern side of the Maysville West lower/larger cut. The pile of
rubble on the bench below the quarry has gradually grown since the late 1990s.
Carneyella ulrichi hardground, here having a gently sculpted surface.
Some Literature on Carneyella ulrichi
Bassler, R.S. 1936. New species of
American Edrioasteroidea. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections
95(6).33 pp. 7 pls.
Bell, B.M. 1976. A study of North American
Edrioasteroidea. New York State Museum and Science Service Memoir
21. 447 pp.
Sumrall, C.D., C.E. Brett, P.T. Work & D.L.
Meyer. 1999. Taphonomy and paleoecology of an edrioasteroid
encrusted hardground in the lower Bellevue Formation at Maysville,
Kentucky. pp. 123-131 in Sequence, cycle & event
stratigraphy of Upper Ordovician & Silurian strata of the Cincinnati Arch
region. 1999 Field Conference of the Great Lakes Section, SEPM-SSG
(Society for Sedimentary Geology) Field Trip Guidebook. [reprinted 2001 in
Kentucky Geological Survey, Series XII, Guidebook 1: 123-131.]
Berg, M.V. 2000. Paleoecology and
paleoenvironment of an Upper Ordovician hardground (Grant Lake Formation,
Cincinnatian Series, northern Kentucky). pp. 240-243 in Thirteenth
Keck Research Symposium in Geology, Proceedings, Whitman College, Walla Walla,
Washington, April 2000.
Sumrall, C.D. 2010. The systematics of a new Upper Ordovician edrioasteroid pavement from northern Kentucky. Journal of Paleontology 84: 783-794.