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Hi, Thank you all so much for your vast expertise. I have been a novice member for some months and have learnt so much from browsing around this forum. It is fascinating and l can happily spend hours here. I only have a few fossils , all common and easily identified. But l recently aquired this tooth which with the help of information on this forum l am tentatively labelling as a Sperm Whale tooth (Pygmy ?) It has horizontal banding and a hollow base which l think are characteristics? Unfortunately l have no information asto its region of origin. But it does have an old inventory (?) number on it, so it has been in someones collection for a while. At first glance it looks like there is a horrible repair/ patch on its tip. But this does not seem to be the case, just feeding damage wearing the tooth down to the underlying enamel area ? If l understand this correctly the cementum is on the outside of whale teeth and the enamel only shows through on the tip where it is worn away with feeding ? Any information as to age ,species etc would be gratefully received. (even if it turns out to be a croc tooth !) Thanks so much Sue

I've been bothered for quite some time about determining the age of petrified wood. The area I collect from has wood with no growth rings indicating a climate with little to no change during the year. At the same time, I find other pieces in the same area With many growth rings indicating seasonal weather changes. This area is the in shinarump portion of the triassic. So, what I am thinking, wood grew in the shinarump, was covered by volcanic eruptions (chinle) and petrified. The Volcanics (chinle) eroded away and more trees grew later on the exposed shinarump and in turn, were petrified by more volcanic eruptions. These volcanics have now eroded away exposing wood with and without growth rings. Sound plausible? Note; The San Francisco peaks near Flagstaff have been erupting off and on for the last 6 million years and could be covering the whole SW from time to time. If this theory holds up, this might mean the petrified wood in Petrified National park might not be triassic age? And if not, how would you determine the correct age? Another random thought-- The wood I find is all in the shinarump which is below the chinle. The wood in Petrified Nat Park seems to be lying on top of the chinle indicating it probably grew on a formation above the chinle. I say this because the chinle in this area (southern Utah) doesn't support any plant life. Think of the painted desert! No forest there! Another thought--- there are stumps in situ here on the shinarump! Thoughts?

I have been finding a number of Terataspis parts in the last week among glacial erratics near my home, but I encountered something that is anomalous (to me). Collected here is the ventral shell and the dorsal steinkern of a Terataspis glabella, a little over 2" (5 cm) on its widest end. Within the furrow area, there are these concentric rings. Perhaps I don't pay enough attention to the ventral side's microsculpture / ornament, and possibly the explanation is face-palm simple, but I was still curious as to what can explain this form of growth process. I did not see anything specific in the Treatise about this feature. Is there perhaps a modern analogy among arthropods that have this sort of concentric ring growth on the ventral side of the shell? I am sure I will feel quite silly if these rings turn out to simply be some kind of parasitic activity. That being said, there is a paper I need to track down on trilobites playing host to parasites. Pictured here would be the ventral (with the rings on the furrow), and two images of the dorsal side (steinkern) where the rings can be seen in the shadow of the glabella in the second image.

Growth rings in dino leg bones suggest Nanotyrannus just a teenaged T. Rex https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/01/world/t-rex-teenage-fossils-scn/index.html

Wow, that's scary to think about. Researchers used daily growth rings in teeth and CT scans of unerupted teeth to estimate replacement rates. https://m.phys.org/news/2019-11-dinosaur-teeth-fast-sharks.html

Hello! I recently visited a sea side town in England on vacation and found this interesting looking blue & white rock on the beach. It appears to be wood but I'm not an expert so I was wanting some validation help?