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Showing results for tags 'bivalves/brachiopod'.
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Modern shells and fossil shells: How to tell the difference?
MeargleSchmeargl posted a topic in Questions & Answers
I look at many a shell that I walk upon on a beach or creek, even at established fossil sites, and I wonder if some of these shells are fossil or not. This is particularly an issue at a place like the Calvert cliffs, where modern shells could wash from the Potomac just as easily as any fossil shells, and what makes it worse is that fossil and modern shells many times even have very similar color in places like river locations. As I am not a huge expert in fossil shells (or in particular, Bivalves as this would be the most common occurrence of confusion, being the most common modern shells on the banks of rivers), what are the big distinguishing features between modern and fossil shells?
