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In this video there are two pine cones. The big one is from Argentina, and the small one is an opal from Australia

I bought this opal as a boulder wood fossil from Australia. I see that it has a few snails and possible a piece of a bone (the first image). it is a microscopic image. The length of the specimen is about 3 cm. Thank you!

This opal is from Lightning Ridge, Australia. Could it be a coprolite Thanks!

Here is a video of an Ethiopian crystal opal with what I think is root systems inside. Are the inclusions really organic or they might be crystals? I added two microscopic images in the end of the video.

This is a boulder opal with some kind of crystals in it. It was sold as “vegetation fossil”. I am attaching a few images that were taken under a microscope. The dimension of the opal is 15.4 x 9 x 4.9mm And the crystals, or whatever it is, take around 1/3 of the length. So, is this a fossil and a fossil of what or these are some minerals? Thanks.

Looks like an opal bone. what do you think?

This is an opal from Lightning Ridge. One image is of a complete stone and a few others are microscopic images. what do you think it is?

This is a boulder opal from Australia. it is 12 x 8.4 x 3.2mm could it be a bone?

What do you think?

This is opal from Australia

The seller did not realize what it was and split it in 4 pieces. What a pity! Here it is

High-tech tools reveal opalized fossil skeleton by Flinders University, August 29, 202 Absolute gem of a find: Opalised dinosaur fossil studied using innovative 3D printing technology. The rare fossils may represent a new Australian dinosaur species Cosmos Magazine, August 29, 2022 Dinosaur Bones Shimmering With Opal Reveal a New Species in Australia A discovery in an Australian opal mine remained unexamined for three decades—it turned out to be the most complete opalized dinosaur skeleton in the world, Gemma Conroy, Smithsonian,June 3, 2019 “Opalized” Dinosaur Skeleton Discovered 30 Years Ago, Now Scientists Have Named the Species. One man was hunting gems and found a load of natural history instead. Rose Heichelbech, Dusty Ol Thing Bell, P.R., Brougham, T., Herne, M.C., Frauenfelder, T. and Smith, E.T., 2019. Fostoria dhimbangunmal, gen. et sp. nov., a new iguanodontian (Dinosauria, Ornithopoda) from the mid- Cretaceous of Lightning Ridge, New South Wales, Australia. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 39(1), p.e1564757. Yours, Paul H.

This one is from Pedy and it's on the top shelf. I was once told of the possibility that it could be a fossil, would be awesome but I would still be ok with this being " just a rock."

I love the useful information on the fossil forum. For something different I have posted some pictures of where I "mine" fossils from 20m underground in an old opal mine. I am extending an old mine tunnel to find occaisional opalised fossils. The first picture below shows my current tunnel and the second picture the "rock" layer that contains traces of opal and opalised fossils. The rock is quite weathered and can be dug out with an electric jack pick. The majority of fossils that I find do not have gem opal colour play, but they do have exceptional presevation.

Hi all the imaginative one back again This time I am curious as to wether this could be a fossil replacement opal? The photos are not very good because it is quiet small, possibly about the size of a pea. The play of colour in this little thing is absolutely amazing! Every single colour on the spectrum from common blues and greens to beautiful orange, red and yellow. It was found in lightning ridge Australia in a $5 lucky dip bag my kids got. To me it looks like a piece of spine or tail bone but once again i love to imagine! Very excited to hear what you all think... They may say that I am a dreamer.... But I am not the only one!

This came in a parcel of opal from Lightning Ridge. I have cut the bottom and a little of the side to be able to see inside better. The smaller opalized top portion is 8x10mm, the bottom opalized portion is 12x10mm. I have been told this may be a yabby button, however I’m not sure because all the photos I’ve seen of yabby buttons don’t look a whole lot like this. I appreciate any feedback, and feel free to ask any questions:) thanks!

Hey everybody. Ive ran into some opalized belemnites that I bought about 25 years ago. I don't know what kind of lighting is best to show the colors of them? I did a google search and got everything under the sun except for what I was looking for. Any help/ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much RB

Hello, Here are a few microscopic images of Yowah opal. I wonder if this spider-looking thing is a fossil or a mineral, and also what do you think about other things in this opal

This is from an email exchange between Dr. Elizabeth T. Smith (of Lightning Ridge and author of the singular "Black Opal Fossils of Lightning Ridge") and I, last month. [Liz also co-authored "Ornithopod diversity in the Griman Creek Formation (Cenomanian), New South Wales, Australia" which was first published in Peer J magazine and which established the new species of herbivore, Weewarasaurus pobeni.] "To explain, it's 0345 and I have insomnia intensified by my excitement about an opalised Lungfish plate I bought today from a top bloke mining at Emu Field (Coocoran), and a little bone I found while going through several hundred pieces of a Ridge miner's selections over the last 4 days. I know it was unfair of me, Liz, to send you that photograph and ask you to guess where/what the piece was from one photograph, not having the advantage that I did of the dish in front of me, pieces wet, under a light. [Digression: before you read on, have a look at the rocks in the dish below and see if you can spot the 'treasure'] : I have sent the same photo again (above) and I'll guess you have a grasp of some Cartesian Geometry so I want you to imagine that the dish has a horizontal X-axis and a vertical Y-axis through the middle which becomes the Origin, the point (0,0). Let's say each axis is 20 units long (which is pretty close to its actual length of 22cms). . The piece in question is approximately at the Point (1,3). What caught my eye was the nearly circular concavity, which irl is about 6mm in diameter. As you know, bones (neck, tail, if turtle) often have those concavities which made that piece stand out in the dish as my eyes roamed at first glance over the contents. The second photo, cropped, is a close-up using the rock at 6 oclock (at the bottom) as (0,0). As I said, I had been going through the material for nearly 4 days, about 20 hours all up, and I was close to the end of the lowest grade of potch and colour (well, potch and potch, really, ha! ) in the bottom of the container he gave me as part of a deal that we did, oh, I don't know, maybe 4 or 5 years ago. I had been through the rest of it not long after I got it, but I went through it all again this week, including the lowest grade (but the latter for the first time). It's not a big-money or spectacular piece with any colour through it. In fact it's rather dull (grey), unassuming, and could easily be mistaken for just another piece of Grey potch in host Rock. A small bone of inconspicuous presence, it does not shout "OH WOW!!" like the little croc tooth on the cover of your wonderful book. If it was one of Portia's caskets from "The Merchant of Venice", it would be the lead one. However, I am typically/predictably enchanted by it, as plain as it is. In your own language, one of the transverse processes on one side of the neural arch has been worn away, either in the process of deposition, or washing in the agi. It's a bone with only one wing, so to speak. But you'll see more of that in the next email when I send you some more photographs. Until I found it, I was going to text the miner and congratulate him on not missing anything. The more unusual or really interesting pieces he takes out --- he has a great eye for detail and for the unusual --- and puts those in separate small bags and has often identified small bones himself, for example a lovely small grey croc scapula (July 2017) and another small bone which I think is turtle and has a little colour in it. The miner is quiet, unassuming, never skites about anything he finds and through our common fascination with opalised fossils, we have become opalised-fossil mates. The sheer volume of non-commercial opalised pieces that he has found and kept only because he finds them so interesting is staggering. Some of the pieces are so tiny I am surprised that he even sees them. I believe he worked two claims at Allawah which were smack on top of an ancient Cretaceous billabong or maybe a creek or similar. The hundreds of pieces that he has kept contain just about anything and everything opalised that you can imagine, or have seen, and plenty of stuff I've never seen before! To my knowledge I don't think there have been any fish vertebrae, but many gastroliths ("yabby buttons"), opalised pine cones, many hundreds of pieces of opalised wood some of which are very pretty or have great shape/contours/lines. Gastropods and other shells, too. Also turtle remains (a few pieces of shell and bones), croc too, and I think at least one Dino bone (not sure). There's also pieces that look like coprolite; worm tubes as well. I can't wait for you to see the whole collection and although I have spent many hours rebagging and measuring and weighing and adding notes/descriptions there will be many more hours spent on it. I can foresee somebody doing valuable research or even a thesis on his collection alone. The wealth of opalised geological, flora and fauna pieces from one small area is jaw-dropping. Most miners would have thrown a lot of it away. His collection is also an excellent summary of the story of opal mining. A lot of hard work over many hours for not much reward and even when there's a huge volume of opalised material only a small percentage of it contains colour, or commercially valuable stones. My guess is that this latest piece --- one tiny bone in many hundreds of pieces, about 5kgs of rough --- is turtle but it has one really unusual feature that I've never seen before but I'll save that for your call after the next email. I may not finish it this morning. It's now 0435 and I'm starting to fade a little bit. All the best, M. P.S. In this 3rd photo where I am holding the piece, a very small fragment has been broken off (middle top left) but is held in place by host rock. Very unusual. Hi Liz I'm sending you some more photos now. One end has a round, smooth and convex protrusion. The other end has that lovely little concavity. Both are about 6 mm across. I'm guessing that the rounded concavity is the rear of the Piece in which the rounded convex protrusion of another piece would fit and move smoothly. Is that right? Separated by cartilage when alive? One of the little "wings" (transverse processes) on the left side is missing, probably broken off by mining or when being washed in the agi. No colour, but otherwise the preservation is very good thanks to the host rock I suspect, as you noted. In that same photo you can see that I started to clean off some of the host rock on the bottom right hand side but I stopped when I realised that some of the host rock also contains other little bits of detritus or whatever that might have scientific interest, so I'm not going to clean it any further. At its widest, it's 14mm but that would be closer to 19 or 20 mm across if that "wing" on the rhs hadn't been broken off or damaged. 10mm high. As is, it weighs 9.6 carats but I would estimate that at least 2 to 3 carats are host rock. Both of the convex and concave ends are about 6 mm but not really circular as much as rounded trapezium, if that make sense? I await eagerly your thoughts! M."" Dr. Smith has confirmed that it's from a turtle, probably caudal at the base of the tail. I know the above is a long read, but I've tried to explain how tedious going through 5 Kgs of potch'n'colour can be, except when one is rewarded by such a lovely little treasure!

Hello hello, recently i bought some opal, in amongst the small stones was this. I am wondering if this is a fragment of bone? Maybe a piece of jaw bone? Its from Coober Pedy, which i believe is cretaceous and marine

I just needed to know what kind is this

Here’s a different kind of possible opal fossil from Australia. This was found in Winton, not lightning ridge. See the next post for the story behind it. I hope the opal fossil collectors and experts on here will weigh in with their opinions.

Götze, J., Möckel, R. and Pan, Y., 2020. Mineralogy, geochemistry and genesis of agate—A review. Minerals, 10(11), no. 1037. 51 pp. Researchgate web page with link to PDF file Yours, Paul H.

Hello, I really need some help identifying what formation my Ammonite fossil is from. Its been dated to the Albian epoch and is from the Mahajanga province, Madagascar. Unfortunately nothing about it says what formation it could be from. I've done a bit of research and the closest formation to what I'm trying to find is the Ankarafantsika Formation. The problem is that, that formation is dated to the Cenomanian. Any help would be great! Here's a picture