40" Scyphocrinites Crinoid Plate - Museum Quality Display

Because the size of this plate it will need to be shipped via freight shipping which will be biller separately from the purchase. Please contact us if you need to freight shipping quote.

This is an exceptionally nice, large plate of Scyphocrinites crinoids quarried near Erfoud, Morocco. The plate is 40" wide an 30" tall weighing around 100 lbs. There are about 16 large crinoids present with the larger crowns being 8-9 inches tall. This quality of this plate is FAR nicer than almost all of the crinoid plates that you see coming out of the area. The crinoids are nicely prepped and spectacularly detail. Just check out some of the closeup photos of the crowns.

Like all of these crinoids plates there is repair as they come out of the ground in pieces and have to be put back together. Some of the longer stems have been composited onto the plate, and there is a fair amount of restoration done to the matrix around the crinoids but little done to the fossils themselves.

We can add a back and a french cleat hanging system to this plate which would allow it to easily be hung on a wall for an extra $250.

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.

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.

Like all of the crinoid plates from this location there is repair/restoration work done to the
plate as they come out of the ground in pieces that have to be put back together.