Fossils

[paul m]

Since I was unable to study wild insects in the woods or molluscs on the beach .... I examined a gravel path. Nothing living but some slightly interesting fossils. Not easy to detect as fossils because having been long washed by running water they look like pebbles from most directions:



Eight Grypheas here - an early mollusc - and a belemnite (to right) a siliceous component of a type of nautiloid. More interesting was what I think is a fragment of crinoid which is star-shaped in section:



I didn't know about star-shaped crinoids but gather that they weren't uncommon in the early Carboniferous - aka Mississippian. Anyone else interested in fossils?

[Silvershark]

I collect fossil shark teeth I used to have other fossils too but I sold them to concentrate n the sharks. I have around 60 fossils in my collection now dating from 347 million years ago to 2 million years ago.

Megalodon



Thresher Shark



Chimera



Otodus obliquus



Petalodus



Stethacanthus



Edestus



Xenacanthus



And plenty more lol Most are up on my website though I still have a few to add that I got last year (I will have to add them at some point...) http://www.freewebs.com/silversharkfossils/index.htm

[black]

Although I'm an environmental chemist, working in an Earth/Ocean Sciences Dept at a Uni an interest in paleontology has rubbed off on me. Particulary like Ammonites, some fine examples come from Madagascar.

Folklore has developed surrounding the columnals which make up the segmented stems in Crinoids. Circular crinoid columnals are known as St. Cuthbert's Beads (or Fairy Money), it was believed he carved the circular columnals on a stormy night so they could be found on the beach the next morning.
Crinoids with pentagonal shaped columnals have been known as Star Stones. Star Stones were thought to have come to earth from the heavens. It was believed the star shaped columnals were generated in the clouds and sent to earth in times of thunder and violent showers.

Interesting article on the BBC website about a stone in a garden rockery that resembles a fish head has turned out to be an 80 million-year-old fossil.
BBC NEWS | England | Garden stone 80-million-years-old