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An Intact Fossilized Shell, Found on my Doorstep!

cowboy

Entry posted by cowboy

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I'm kind of, fascinated with old stuff. REALLY old stuff. And while I've never found anything particularly outstanding to other people maybe, i always treasure what i do find.

and today, i wasn't really expecting to find anything! i was just out in my backyard garden, picking through stones from the freshly cultivated soil, because i do find a lot of gemstones in my garden after hoeing it, and i think they're pretty. i kind of have a little of collection of them.

but then i saw something that caught my eye, a bright red rock with something sticking out of it. and at first i thought it was just like, another type of rock mixed in with the red rock, but when i picked it up and looked closer, i knew what i was seeing was the back end of a fully-intact shell. and i was like, wow! i have to break this thing open. Sure I could've kept it the way it was, but i knew inside were probably layers of more shell fragments that were more interesting to look at to add to my collection. So I grabbed a hammer, and split the thing in half, and this is what i found.

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I'd never found anything containing a fossil fully intact before...just the ghostly remnants of an imprint of something no longer there. but look, there it is, that's a fully intact shell.

how cool is that! you can see lots of other bits of imprints of shells that are no long there, too, all over the stone, which is what most of my rocks look like. But holy cow, this shell is still here. And it's not the only one. Theres a couple here and there, sticking out in different ends of the rock.

I like to go out and hunt for stuff like this, because it's fun. But I never expected to find a fossil sitting in my own backyard.

These are the other interesting fossils ive acquired

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the imprinted leaves I actually got at a festival in one of those old-fashioned towns, that kind of preserves the way it used to be when it was founded in the 1800s.

The limestone to the right of it is a block of a bunch of shell fragment and coral imprints, theres a fossilized reed in there i found on my grandpas property as a little kid,

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and i found this one a couple years ago while camping out in the woods.

anyways, i was SO super stoked about this, i just had to post something.

Also I noticed my blog title was kind of similar to someone elses, so i tried changing it, but im not very creative LOL

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Illusion of Terra

just in case you are curious about the age etc., you might try your local university's professors. from my experience those dealing with fossils are mellow people who are always interested in stuff like those.

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efaardvark

I know the feeling.  When I was in 2nd(?) grade my family lived for a while in Alabama.  There was a drainage ditch that ran behind our house and every time it rained us kids could hardly wait to go out and see what the water had washed out or uncovered.  I still have a box with a bunch of fossils, and other brick-a-brak, mostly from that time.

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Nyxnine

Ahhh the geo nerd in me is internally screaming. THIS IS AWESOME. AND IT'S IN YOUR BACK YARD?

 

Lucky!!

There is a city nearby that has a dinosaur museum with hiking trails around it (it's kind of a dangerous area as there are cougars, scorpions and snakes). I used to go there a lot with a few friends to hike. They have a lot of shells and plant imprints as well. My favorite oddly enough is when you find the imprints of things like water droplets or rippling from water. I haven't lucked out in seeing dino bones but they still have research there.

What an awesome find though. I agree with illusion, you could totally get that dated. Generally that cross section of land might already be dated. 

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cowboy

 

@Nyxnine @Illusion of Terra

i hadn't really thought of that, im sure they'd be happy to do that. there is shipping though. if im ever feeling bored and have the extra, what is it, 12 bucks? for the med-sized flat-rate shipping box? i forget. i know the small ones 7 but im not sure they'd all fit. but i should just pack them all in there and mail them over to purdue. as long as i can get them back!

that sounds like a lot of fun, even with all the snakes, scorpions, and cougars. 😨

@efaardvark

you found that in a drainage ditch? woah, you mustve lived in a fossil hotspot. i usually have to go out and find limestone deposits to look for them, that's why i was completely surprised to find a random one in my own backyard, it's not really a place you'd expect to find something like this. it mustve been deep in the soil, brought to surface by years and years of cultivating the soil.

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Illusion of Terra

oh I thought you might have a university nearby you could just go to after writing an e-mail to the professors with the images. shipping and all that sounds like more of a hassle than I had thought.

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Nyxnine
18 hours ago, Illusion of Terra said:

oh I thought you might have a university nearby you could just go to after writing an e-mail to the professors with the images. shipping and all that sounds like more of a hassle than I had thought.

Might be able to inquire without sending it in though if that land had previously been surveyed. I would email and inquire either way @cowboy

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