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Bivalve fossil with pearl!


Mickey

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I found this oyster fossil in a creek bed on a walk with my son in Austin, Texas sometime in May 2020. I believe it was in a Quaternary geologic formation.  I’ve collected a number of these, but never with a pearl. Just curious if anyone else has seen one! 

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Holy moly thats a nice find! Ive never found an oyster with a pearl still attached to it. 

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Cool! 
 

Show us some more views of the oyster. Are both shells there? Looks like oyster on right might have both shells. Another oyster is next to or was attached to the small valve of the right oyster. Not a great living arrangement if both were alive at the same time Sort of looks like Cretaceous Exogyra ponderosa.

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It would be nice to see details of the bulbous bit. Minerals have a way of precipitating around a point forming botryoidal formations. Would be good to discount that as a possibility. I'd think there would be more grape-like spheres if it was some sort of mineral accretion forming botryoidal growths but it would be wise to consider what else this might be. Pretty cool if it was evidence of a fossilized pearl.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

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Here are a few more photos. I did not find it whole, just this side. I do have a few that are intact but I like em too much to look inside. 

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Looking at the closer images, the (blister-)pearl does seem to be the same weathered and mineralized nacreous material as the inside surface of the shell.

 

Pretty cool find but a bit big to hang on a necklace. :P

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

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What a cool find indeed it looks like a blister pearl to me . I have one in my collection, found in Norfolk by a  friend of mine. 

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Looks like a pearl to me. It's most definitely a water worn Exogyra and probably E. ponderosa. That would be the likely suspect in a creek here in Austin.  

 

I think there are maybe a small handful of "blister pearls" amongst the hundreds and hundreds of Cretaceous oysters I have collected both here in Texas and back in New Jersey.

 

Nice fossil!

 

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Hey!

So I saw this post and was thinking about a recent shell I found that had a similar circular formation on its surface.

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Does anyone suppose this could also be a pearl or lister pearl too?

Thanks!

 

-Em

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8 hours ago, Bobby Rico said:

What a cool find indeed it looks like a blister pearl to me . I have one in my collection, found in Norfolk by a  friend of mine. 

F92ACC0E-638D-46C6-9289-E6F59F71A898.jpeg A7FD8178-490B-4EAC-A905-5F01E456913C.jpeg

Niiice! 

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Seeing the topic now, I agree with blister pearl. Just remembered an older topic on TFF:

 

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