Kingofthekats Posted January 9, 2021 Share Posted January 9, 2021 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingofthekats Posted January 9, 2021 Author Share Posted January 9, 2021 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingofthekats Posted January 9, 2021 Author Share Posted January 9, 2021 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingofthekats Posted January 9, 2021 Author Share Posted January 9, 2021 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingofthekats Posted January 9, 2021 Author Share Posted January 9, 2021 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingofthekats Posted January 9, 2021 Author Share Posted January 9, 2021 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingofthekats Posted January 9, 2021 Author Share Posted January 9, 2021 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rockwood Posted January 9, 2021 Share Posted January 9, 2021 I can imagine some real crafty ironstone preserving a stigmaria this way. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon Posted January 9, 2021 Share Posted January 9, 2021 At first glance, it most reminds me of a piece of decorated pottery. But I take it, it is not (i.e., is harder than glass in a scratch-test)? 'There's nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fibre and, in some cases, backbone' -- Terry Pratchett Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sagebrush Steve Posted January 10, 2021 Share Posted January 10, 2021 Compared to the size of the penny, those are pretty small features. Could they be some sort of foraminifera? Here is a photo of something similar from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foraminifera Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LabRatKing Posted January 10, 2021 Share Posted January 10, 2021 A bit large and regular for forams....location data? Is this specimen magnetic? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digit Posted January 10, 2021 Share Posted January 10, 2021 I wonder if we can rule out the possibility that this is some sort of man-made decoration on something like pottery? Cheers. -Ken 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Earendil Posted January 10, 2021 Share Posted January 10, 2021 I'm reminded of this thread: "Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; Wrecked is the ship of pearl! And every chambered cell, Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell" -From The Chambered Nautilus by Oliver Wendell Holmes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottBlooded Posted January 10, 2021 Share Posted January 10, 2021 36 minutes ago, digit said: I wonder if we can rule out the possibility that this is some sort of man-made decoration on something like pottery? Cheers. -Ken I had the same thought, pottery or tile fragment of some sort? It seems to have uniform thickness. The 8 pointed star pattern is uniform in size and fairly evenly spaced. Also seems to start on a straight line, forming a ledge which terminates on a parallel line within the pattern. The back made me think tile because on one broken corner you can see the beginning of a bend in the material that looks like its heading for 90 degree angle after a gentle curve that’s broken off. Then, if you look where that bend lines up with the front patterned side, it forms another 90 degree angle with the line where the pattern starts. A lot of searching though and honestly I can’t find anything for eight pointed star patterns in tile or pottery fragments that looks close, let alone in PA. Honestly not even seeing a lot of fossils. I’m really curious about this and hope someone on here can help solve this for you. I would advise though, give as precise a location as you can. It can really help narrow things down for folks on here trying to help you out. PA is big. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LabRatKing Posted January 10, 2021 Share Posted January 10, 2021 1 hour ago, digit said: I wonder if we can rule out the possibility that this is some sort of man-made decoration on something like pottery? Cheers. -Ken I have a suspicion, just need to know if it is magnetic. I believe this is a piece of a coal grate, if magnetic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sagebrush Steve Posted January 10, 2021 Share Posted January 10, 2021 1 hour ago, ScottBlooded said: I had the same thought, pottery or tile fragment of some sort? It seems to have uniform thickness. The 8 pointed star pattern is uniform in size and fairly evenly spaced. Also seems to start on a straight line, forming a ledge which terminates on a parallel line within the pattern. The back made me think tile because on one broken corner you can see the beginning of a bend in the material that looks like its heading for 90 degree angle after a gentle curve that’s broken off. Then, if you look where that bend lines up with the front patterned side, it forms another 90 degree angle with the line where the pattern starts. A lot of searching though and honestly I can’t find anything for eight pointed star patterns in tile or pottery fragments that looks close, let alone in PA. Honestly not even seeing a lot of fossils. I’m really curious about this and hope someone on here can help solve this for you. I would advise though, give as precise a location as you can. It can really help narrow things down for folks on here trying to help you out. PA is big. The question I have about it being pottery is that those stars are really tiny. At least 10 of them would fit across the diameter of a penny. That would make them only about 2 mm in diameter. Also, it’s hard to tell for sure, but it looks like they wrap around the side of the piece, which suggests they were formed after the piece was already broken. I am leaning toward them being some sort of natural phenomenon like a crystal growth, as @yardrockpaleo suggests. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hemipristis Posted January 10, 2021 Share Posted January 10, 2021 3 hours ago, digit said: I wonder if we can rule out the possibility that this is some sort of man-made decoration on something like pottery? Cheers. -Ken agree. pottery 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.' George Santayana Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon Posted January 10, 2021 Share Posted January 10, 2021 11 hours ago, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said: At first glance, it most reminds me of a piece of decorated pottery. But I take it, it is not (i.e., is harder than glass in a scratch-test)? To check whether this is pottery, it would be really good if the edges could be cleaned up a bit to see whether anything can be made out concerning paste or tempering materials. Also, a trick often applied to test for pottery in archaeological contexts (where, however, most traditionally fired pottery is less hard than some modern variants, so I'm not sure how that'd work) is to try and scratch a piece of glass, like an old wine bottle, following Mohs scale of mineral hardness. If I remember correctly, even if the temper in a piece of pottery might be able to cause a scratch on the glass, there will be residue - i.e., soft powder - from the pottery itself, as clay is much less hard than glass. 'There's nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fibre and, in some cases, backbone' -- Terry Pratchett Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mahnmut Posted January 10, 2021 Share Posted January 10, 2021 Hello together, here is one of those cases again where size does matter. If the stars are about 2 mm, I can hardly imagine them being decoration in cast iron. I just looked up that there is only one copper coin in the US, 1cent, being 0.75 iches or 19.05 mm in diameter, as most of you will already know. (we have three kinds of copper in Europe, 1, 2 and 5 cents, being of different sizes, the 2 cents resembling the US cent most at 18.75 mm ) Thus measuring the stars on screen I find them to be between 3.5 and 5 mm from tip to tip. (they overlap) Thats still small, but something I could imagine as a cast pattern, maybe rather preindustrial? It does not in my eyes look like a crystalline pattern, especially at the edge to the smooth part. The angles between stars are also rather random for chrystals. So I would guess artificial or maybe biological=fossil. As LabRatKing mentioned, a magnet would be a simple next step. Beautiful find anyway. Best Regards, J Try to learn something about everything and everything about something Thomas Henry Huxley Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erose Posted January 10, 2021 Share Posted January 10, 2021 My SWAG worth barely two cents: this is a concretion or phosphatic nodule and the patterns are a mineral crystal spray pattern.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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