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Me and my wife found this rockhounding together in some railroad tracks. It looks like a mushroom cap and I've done some research and I am 80% confident it is a mushroom cap, but at the same time I'm a little doubtful being that mushrooms are so fragile. What would a mushroom have to over come and the middle, things would have to be just right I'm assuming to become petrified.

Hey, everyone. I found this a few years back and thought how strange it would be for a mushroom to achieve fossilization, so I kept it as a sort of trophy on my desk until losing track of it during a move to a different city and then forgetting all about it. I found it again earlier today, however, and was once again struck by how unlikely a mushroom fossil was, especially one not embedded in amber or stone. After some investigation, the odds seem even greater that it can't be. Nevertheless, the gills seem undeniable to me, and it's as light as you'd imagine a fossilized mushroom would be. I figured I'd bring the mystery to people who would enjoy solving it, so here we are. Thoughts? Did the cosmic mycelia arrange a discovery too synchronous to allow the possibility of a cold and empty universe devoid of meaning? Or am I just some jerk with a rock? In case it matters, this was found in central Texas some time in late 2016. Unfortunately, I can't recall the exact moment of discovery right now. It was either in the hill country near New Braunfels or along a hike and bike trail in North Austin.

I found this fossil in NYS near a creek in Hillsdale. Any ideas on what it is?, It has defined grooves, curved shape like it's half of the bottom of a mushroom. Searched the web but saw nothing like it. Please let me know if you have any tips for me. Thanks. -mike

Ok guys please bear with me, I am new here. I first have to say this is a great forum. I ran a forum for over a year on a specific species of Central American Cichlid, and surely I wish it was this well put together. Many kudo's for your hard work here. Where shall I begin... A friend of mine claimed he had this petrified mushroom. He said he was walking through the farm fields after a fresh till looking for arrow heads that he commonly finds. He claims he kicked this rock and noticed something strange about it so he brought it home and washed it off. He said it was plain as day what he had...a fossilized or petrified mushroom. I'm no expert in the field Paleobotany or anything to do with fossils, but it just seemed odd to me that such a thing could be turned to stone like this. I had a hard time believing him and finally tonight he brought it over. Sure enough, clear as can be it is indeed rock hard mushroom. The top of the cap is completely smooth and the bottom of the cap has a hole where the stem should be as well as lines where the gils of the mushrooms are. There is also a stem that he says was in the hole in the ground that the cap came flying out of. I took some pictures with my cell phone and they are horrible. I am going to post them anyway just to give a slight glimpse at what we are dealing with here. For people like us its a pretty exciting find, but it leaves a couple of questions: How can something so soft stay in such perfect condition through such an extremely long proccess of fossilization? One would suspect a fungus would decompose before this could happen. Are fossils of mushrooms common? How can we determine the age? The other thing that sort of puzzled us was the location this thing was found. It was not found in rock. Delaware has practically no rock...we are mostly sand here. So does southern Delaware seem like an unlikely place to have found such a thing? I know these pictures wont do it much justice or give you much to go on for identification purposes, but I atleast wanted to show something so you knew this story is not a fabrication. Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to give. Cole~