Bulletin of the Mizunami Fossil Museum

Bulletin of the Mizunami Fossil Museum No. 46

Reworked fragments of Mississippian (Early Carboniferous) crinoid columns are a feature of both fluvial systems and glacial deposits in the Netherlands. A pluricolumnal from an unusual situation, the beach of a man-made island in the Marker Wadden archipelago (province of Flevoland, north-central Netherlands), is well preserved for a reworked, much travelled fossil. Distinctive features include: circular section; slightly eccentric, rounded pentagonal lumen; radial symplectial articulation extending from circumference of columnal to lumen edge; pluricolumnal heteromorphic, N212; and latera unsculptured. With a broad axial canal, this specimen is undoubtedly of Palaeozoic and most likely Mississippian age (Lower Carboniferous), and represents either a cladid or monobathrid. The pluricolumnal is from the mesistele; the eccentric axial canal suggests it was close to a recumbent dististele.