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Millimodels

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I have been digging in the garden in Rossendale, Lancashire, to clear an area to pave and put up a green house. The area has previously been a barn, demolished in the 1990s, and since then field, then mowed as lawn.

After clearing the turf I started to level the earth and stones below. I found that the old barn floor was about 8" (20cm) down, composed of ruble stones. In amongst them I suddenly found this which I immediately saw a resemblence to tree fern stems/trunks that I had seen in museum. It is very dense, weighing in at just over a Kilogram, denser than the surrounding stones in the old floor.

There is an old coal mine less than a mile away and one of the nineteenth century inhabitants is shown on the census, 1861 I think, as a farmer and miner. There is also evidence of several small unrecorded mine close to the garden than that. We have a borehole for water and the record of that shows 40 feet of shale and clay before solid rock is found.

I note that besides the patterend surface there are several holes that look like burrows penetrating the object, especially visible at the ends.

My assumption is that the burrows predate the end breakages as they would have weakened it at those points.

My photos are too large to send all at once.

Any ideas?

 

Thank you

20200421_133841.jpg

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Could very well be, but it's hard to judge just from that one photo. Is it possible to post some more with higher resolution? Also from the ends.

 

Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger

http://www.steinkern.de/

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Rotated, cropped and brightened: 

 

20200421_133841.jpg.3c288869ae218c06d8e8e47a8ce015e1.jpg

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I think it’s a piece of Stigmaria, the holes being the root scars (where smaller roots would attach to the larger root).  It could be from the Millstone grit or the Coal Measures.  Nice find.

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Another photo showing the end. This is from one end, you can see a probable worm hole going across the entire width. There are other holes in the body of it and anoyher large one across the other end.  One of my photos is just below the size limit on posting so can only put up one to a post.

 

Robin Madge

 

 

20200421_134019.thumb.jpg.4d593505642450da567a042c6577dae7.jpg

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57 minutes ago, Millimodels said:

Another photo showing the end. This is from one end, you can see a probable worm hole going across the entire width. There are other holes in the body of it and anoyher large one across the other end.  One of my photos is just below the size limit on posting so can only put up one to a post.

 

Robin Madge

 

 

20200421_134019.thumb.jpg.4d593505642450da567a042c6577dae7.jpg

The dark line near the top of the rock on this photo looks like it may be a rootlet that would have come off a larger root though it’s difficult to tell from the photo.  So I’m fairly sure this is a piece of Stigmaria.  The tube shape going vertically on the above photo may be a burrow but if so I think it is more likely to have been created by a bivalve rather than a worm.  However I think it’s more likely to be just the way the rock has fractured.

 

What are your thoughts on this @Archie?

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looks like Stigmaria to me also

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"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"_ Carl Sagen

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I agree with @Strepsodus that its a section of a Stigmaria cast and that the dark line seen on the end is probably a rootlet, nice find! Heres some examples from a local colliery for comparison, two casts and an adpression with the rootlets still attached 

IMGP7446.JPG

IMGP7447.JPG

IMGP7448.JPG

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The dark line is a tubular hole across the entire width, like a worm hole. There is another on the other end which leads me to think that would cause weak points that would lead to fracture at these places. Ther are several other fine holes in the surface and fine grass roots from the turf were finding their way into them.

I have managed to get another photo uploaded.

 

Robin

20200421_134040.jpg

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