Mississippian Age crinoids from Crawfordsville, Indiana, are known worldwide for their completeness, abundance, comparatively large size, and extraordinary aesthetic appeal. With over 100 detailed photos and drawings and incisive text, this book describes the locality, focusing on its exceptional value from both scientific and lay perspectives. The geologic region is explored, along with the factors believed to have led to the unusual preservation of these crinoids. Detailed descriptions of the morphology, geological history, and classification of stemmed Paleozoic age crinoids follows. Diagrams and photos of real specimens aid in understanding crinoid terminology and identifying and classifying these crinoids to the genus and species level. This book is written for both the new and advanced collector. It is also valuable to the new student of invertebrate paleontology. It provides updated insight into the morphology, classification, and identification of crinoid fossils collected at the Crawfordsville localities.

Collector's Guide to Fort Payne Crinoids and Blastoids is the first comprehensive guide for identifying the fossils of echinoderms from hundreds of millions of years ago, when North America was covered by a warm, equatorial sea. Crinoids and blastoids, echinoderms (the same family of marine animals to include starfish, sea urchins, and sand dollars) from the Fort Payne Formation in Kentucky, are rarely seen at gem, mineral, and fossil shows, nor are they regularly displayed at major museums. By combining high-quality color photographs and an accompanying descriptive text, William W. Morgan provides the first comprehensive identification guide to these fascinating fossils. Collector's Guide to Fort Payne Crinoids and Blastoids features photographs, often offering more than one view, of the best-quality specimens curated in the Smithsonian and other prominent invertebrate fossil museums. Morgan includes photographs that are unlabeled so that readers can test themselves to see whether they can differentiate some of the more subtle features that may be necessary for accurate identification.