Dinosaur skin???

[Sjcrosiar]

Hey i was wondering if anyone can help me identify if this is  dinosaur skin? Back about 15 years my husband went to montana to help out on a ranch. There was a part of yellowstone going threw it and he found this there. It was out side of Glendive. Any help will help we have always belived it to be dinosaur skin, but everyone i try and contact just tells me skin is very rare. If its not skin what is it. Thanks for the help.

 

Edited September 10, 2020 by Sjcrosiar

[Sjcrosiar]

Here are a few more pics. It used to be darker, but im not an expert and dont know how i should keep it.

Edited September 10, 2020 by Sjcrosiar

[abyssunder]

Welcome to the Forum! 

I think, your specimen looks like "reptilian skin", but it's a geological wonder rather than biological.

[Bobby Rico]

Welcome  I don’t think it is skin but  geological in it’s nature.  

sorry abyssunder said before me.

[abyssunder]

10 minutes ago, Bobby Rico said:

Welcome  I don’t think it is skin but  geological in it’s nature.  

sorry abyssunder said before me.

No problem, we are in the same sequance. 

For O.P. I think there might be important informations and comparable pictures in this older topic: https://www.google.com/search?q=crocodile+skinn+thefossilforum&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwiL9rbUtt_rAhUK4oUKHUbgBEYQ2-cCegQIABAC&oq=crocodile+skinn+thefossilforum&gs_lcp=ChJtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1pbWcQAzIECB4QCjoCCCk6BQgAEM0COgQIABANOgYIABANEB46BAgAEBNQzHpYiqUCYO-oAmgJcAB4AIABqgGIAe0jkgEEMC4zNJgBAKABAcABAQ&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-img&ei=g4xaX8uoD4rElwTGwJOwBA&bih=560&biw=360&client=ms-android-jeko&prmd=imvn#imgrc=kAaMSISP-H5hvM

[Sjcrosiar]

Thanks for your responses. So you guys think its some kind of fossiled rock formation? Is that what you guys mean?

[Bobby Rico]

2 minutes ago, Sjcrosiar said:

Thanks for your responses. So you guys think its some kind of fossiled rock formation? Is that what you guys mean?

No not a fossil or remains of a living organism  but geological in it’s nature. 

[Sjcrosiar]

How do you identify the difference between the two? 

[jpc]

This looks like an ironstone concretion.  Dinosaur skin has a more distinct and usually more detailed pattern.  And is more believable if found with bones.   I have never seen dinosaur skin have these colors that yours has, but they are common in ironstone concs.   

[abyssunder]

56 minutes ago, Sjcrosiar said:

Thanks for your responses. So you guys think its some kind of fossiled rock formation? Is that what you guys mean?

Ironstone concretion

[Sjcrosiar]

Is ironstone concretions heavy? Are they usually found near rivers?

[fossilus]

6 minutes ago, Sjcrosiar said:

Is ironstone concretions heavy? Are they usually found near rivers?

Yes they are heavy and are often found near rivers.

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

Just for sake of reference, here's a hadrosaur skin impression from my collection.

 

 

Now, obviously, skin impressions differ from the positive - i.e. mummified skin - from species to species and from body part to body part, but this should give you a bit of an impression (pun not intended!). A search around the internet should easily result in other samples.

 

I wish I could show you a completely different type of skin fossil - as I do own a piece of mummified dinosaur skin as well - but this, unfortunately, is located in a different place that I can't access right now. Still, I hope this example helps.

[Sjcrosiar]

3 hours ago, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said:

Just for sake of reference, here's a hadrosaur skin impression from my collection.

 

 

Now, obviously, skin impressions differ from the positive - i.e. mummified skin - from species to species and from body part to body part, but this should give you a bit of an impression (pun not intended!). A search around the internet should easily result in other samples.

 

I wish I could show you a completely different type of skin fossil - as I do own a piece of mummified dinosaur skin as well - but this, unfortunately, is located in a different place that I can't access right now. Still, I hope this example helps.

Thanks for the help do you know how to tell the difference between  skin or an ironstone concretion? Im trying to find distinct differences. Will ironstone make a metal detector go off? I know anything else with iron will.

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

53 minutes ago, Sjcrosiar said:

Thanks for the help do you know how to tell the difference between  skin or an ironstone concretion? Im trying to find distinct differences. Will ironstone make a metal detector go off? I know anything else with iron will.

In that case I suspect ironstone will also make a metal detector go off. Ironstone has high ferric content from which iron can be extracted, so I guess that should meet the criteria - but have no personal experience.

 

Thing is that, as far as I'm aware, you need very special conditions for skin the preserve, a major component of which is soft, fine-grained sediment that is both small and pliable enough to follow the contours of the skin. This, in itself, requires very distinct sedimentary environments, such as an anoxic sea floor or slowly discharging fluvial or marine environment, possibly preceded by desiccation. In other words, you can tell by the sediment in which the presumed skin fossil is found whether it is at all possible for it to be fossilised skin.

 

Also, I believe, skin fossils have distinct, yet oft regular patterning, which is rarely the case with natural geological formations, and is indeed not the case in your specimen. Moreover, as with scales in live animals, fossilised scales will lie directly adjacent one another, with only minimal space between them. Again, this is not the case in your specimen.

 

Finally, fossilised skin, like live skin, is a sheet that will either lie flat, or will wrap itself around any part of the body that has equally been preserved. Thus, if you find something you suspect is fossilised skin, but is not a flat sheet but rather wrapped semi-randomly around something other than bone, it's probably not skin. Again, your specimen seems to wrap itself around something, but this something is not part of animal anatomy. Thus, again not a good indicator for skin...

 

Now I should add I've not read a lot about skin fossils, and the above is therefore mainly extrapolated from my understanding of sedimentary and taxonomic processes, but I hope it nonetheless clears things up a bit.

[jpc]

I would be very surprised if an ironstone conc would set off a metal detector.  

[Sjcrosiar]

13 minutes ago, jpc said:

I would be very surprised if an ironstone conc would set off a metal detector.  

When i ran it over my white's it didnt make any sound. We thought hey montana is like known for there dinosaurs, being found there outside of glendive along the yellowstone we thought it was something special

[Mahnmut]

Hi Sjcrosiar,

This is a really beautiful mineral sample, probably limonite/hematite (also known as Ironstone) and a piece of natural history, just not one that involved dinosaurs.

If I found it I would have given it a nice place in my collection.

Metal detectors as far as I understand them measure the conductivity, which is lower in oxide minerals like these than in refined metal.

Best regards,

J

[jpc]

I assume a white's is some sort of metal detector?  

Or did you put it in with your light colored laundry?  : )

 

[jpc]

Just now, Mahnmut said:

Hi Sjcrosiar,

This is a really beautiful mineral sample, probably limonite/hematite (also known as Ironstone) and a piece of natural history, just not one that involved dinosaurs.

If I found it I would have given it a nice place in my collection.

Metal detectors as far as I understand them measure the conductivity, which is lower in oxide minerals like these than in refined metal.

Best regards,

J

Thanks for that explanation.

 

 

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

16 minutes ago, jpc said:

I assume a white's is some sort of metal detector?  

Or did you put it in with your light colored laundry?  : )

 

White is indeed a brand of metal detector, some would even argue the best

[Mahnmut]

my pleasure. On second thought:

As I have been found guilty of oversimplification on this forum before I like to correct my statement above. Metal detectors dont measure conductivity, but the changes in electromegnetic fields that metallic objects induce in a different way to less conductive/permeable materials. There are different ways to do this.

But for all who want to know it more exactly I recommend an online encyclopedia entry on metal detectors.

Nice piece of limonite anyway.

Cheers, J

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

23 minutes ago, Mahnmut said:

Metal detectors as far as I understand them measure the conductivity, which is lower in oxide minerals like these than in refined metal.

That's what I thought, but I wasn't sure... Metal detectors indeed measure conductivity - or, rather, the difference in it (that is, they measure the conductivity indirectly). Not sure about the type of ferric content in ironstone, but if it's oxide (i.e., iron rust, which is does look like), then the conductivity will indeed be less and it won't be picked up by a detector.

[ByronNWT]

Cool rock though!