9.9" Moroccan Crinoid (Scyphocrinites) Fossil

Here is a elegant specimen of the Upper Silurian (420 million years old) crinoid Scyphocrinites elegans from Morocco. The plate is approximately 12.8x10.4 inches with the crinoid being about 9.9 inches in length (including stem). Like nearly all of the crinoids from this location there is repair to the matrix where the pieces of rock have been reassembled
Crinoids where animals which were rooted to the floor of the ocean by a stem and had many armored feeding arms which they used to filter the water for food. They first appeared in the Ordovician period and are still alive today.

The Scyphocrinites crinoids are quarried around Erfoud, Morocco by digging straight down 16 feet until the layer is reached. Once the crinoid horizon is located a tunnel is dug along it by hand. The rock, dirt and crinoid slabs must then be hauled to the surface in baskets where they are reassembled and prepared. So it is a very labor intensive process to bring a beautiful crinoid plate like this one to market.