| A view northeast to the Ibex District from the slopes of Fossil Mountain; strata at right side of photograph belong to the lower Ordovician Kanosh Shale of the Pogonip Group, an association of six distinct geologic rock formations that produce prolific assemblages of brachiopods, ostracods (bivalved crustacean), sponges, trilobites, gastropods, pelcypods, cephalopods, graptolites, conodonts, echinoderms, corals, and bryozoans, primarily, that often form shell beds composed of nothing but a single variety of fossil organism; for example, the Kanosh Shale is justifiably famous for its thick shell beds containing the prolific remains of a single species of brachiopod, called scientifically Shoshonorthis michaelis. Other beds produce abundant ostracods, gastropods, trilobites, or echinoderms, to the exclusion of all of other invertebrate animal types. Fossil Mountain in Millard County, Utah, could well yield the most diverse lower Ordovician fossil sequence in North America. Image cropped and processed through photoshop from a photograph originally taken by an individual who goes by the cyber-moniker "traprock1." |