Is this a fossil?

[BellamyBlake]

I have here a polar bear tooth from St. Lawrence, Alaska. I was told it was fossilized, Pleistocene to be precise. The seller had other similar teeth available on offer, in darker shades, claiming they were all fossilized and simply preserved in different ways. Ultimately, I chose this one.

 

As far as the literature goes, it has been argued that the polar bear does go back to the late Pleistocene:

 

Ingólfsson, Ólafur; Wiig, Øystein (2009). "Late Pleistocene fossil find in Svalbard: the oldest remains of a polar bear (Ursus maritimus Phipps, 1744) ever discovered". Polar Research. 28 (3). doi:10.3402/polar.v28i3.6131

 

I know coloration is not the ideal determination of fossilization, and yet I also read that the burn test wouldn't work on a tooth. Is there, then, any way to confirm if this is fossilized?

[Oxytropidoceras]

By the way, you might want to get written documentation from the seller attesting to it being a Pleistocene fossil and of the time that you purchased it. In the future, severe restrictions on the possession and sale of polar remains, such as teeth, likely will be enacted and it will become essential to have documentation of the provenance, sales history, and age of your tooth. If the possession and sale of polar bear remains becomes either illegal or tightly regulated in the future, such documentation will be your key to getting your tooth "grandfathered" and exempted from such legistatrion.

 

Yours,

 

Paul H.

[BellamyBlake]

1 hour ago, Oxytropidoceras said:

By the way, you might want to get written documentation from the seller attesting to it being a Pleistocene fossil and of the time that you purchased it. In the future, severe restrictions on the possession and sale of polar remains, such as teeth, likely will be enacted and it will become essential to have documentation of the provenance, sales history, and age of your tooth. If the possession and sale of polar bear remains becomes either illegal or tightly regulated in the future, such documentation will be your key to getting your tooth "grandfathered" and exempted from such legistatrion.

 

Yours,

 

Paul H.

Absolutely Paul, good call and thanks for the heads up. I kept the emails proving that they stated it's a fossil. I'm pretty meticulous with documents.

[Mahnmut]

Hi Blake,

as this tooth seems to still consist of more or less the same minerals it was built of in life, there is only one definition of "fossil" that may apply here, namely  being older than 10ky.

This could possibly be determined with some technical trick, but not easily. Documentation of the circumstances of the find would be another way.

Other than that, it is a gradual thing with pleistocene teeth.

Best Regards,

 J.