DocBee Posted April 30, 2021 Share Posted April 30, 2021 Hi Guys, My son's friend asked me to id this and I'm embarrassed to say that I'm stumped! It's siliceous, it was found in UK and its owner has suggested it could be from Whitby (or less likely from North Cornwall or the Isle of Man). It's intriguing me because if you look through the little holes you can see daylight suggesting to me that the specimen might be fossil and not just a strange depositional feature. I'm convincing myself that I can see five-fold symmetry and that it looks like some sort of echinoid but I might be way off the mark. If you think it's depositional or diagenetic can you explain to me how you think it might have formed? Thanks for your time. Top view. There are holes or pairs of holes running down both sides and you can see daylight if you look through! Side view showing horizontal holes running through the specimen. Inside of the holes appears to be crystalline silica or some grains of silica. View of the other side, showing similar holes which go straight through Bottom view Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fossildude19 Posted April 30, 2021 Share Posted April 30, 2021 Can we get some pictures of each side with it flat on the surface? Your fingers are obscuring some details. Tim - VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER VFOTM --- APRIL - 2015 __________________________________________________ "In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." John Muir ~ ~ ~ ~ ><))))( *> About Me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocBee Posted April 30, 2021 Author Share Posted April 30, 2021 Sure! , Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
val horn Posted April 30, 2021 Share Posted April 30, 2021 I have been wrong many times and am going by my own rather limited experience, but I dont see anything biological. One reason for this feeling is that the "mineral" that makes up this piece does not look like bone or shell, nor what I expect from a fine clay or sand infilling an internal mold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClearLake Posted May 1, 2021 Share Posted May 1, 2021 I’m not seeing a fossil here, other than perhaps some trace fossils (burrows?) contributing to differential erosion. But there are lots of other potential explanations, I just don’t think a body fossil is one of them, at least nothing I recognize. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LabRatKing Posted May 1, 2021 Share Posted May 1, 2021 Looks purely geologic to me, but darned interesting geologic. It would end up in my " really F'ing cool box of rocks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocBee Posted May 1, 2021 Author Share Posted May 1, 2021 Thanks so much for your input guys. The fact that the little holes are all perfectly lined up orthogonally to the layering is what's drawing me away from a purely geologic origin. It looks like it's made up of 6 layers with the identical structure to what I have described as the "bottom" of the specimen stacked up on top of each other. The indentations that criss-cross the bottom correspond exactly with where the line of holes show on the sides. Hmmmm... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mahnmut Posted May 1, 2021 Share Posted May 1, 2021 Hi Doc Bee, Welcome to the forum. I see what you mean. Maybe it is a weathered fossil, in that case an echinoid would not be my first guess though. It looks like a stack of repeated similar structures (like somites) that are typical for many groups of animals, but not so much for echinoids. Maybe a fragment of an orthocone nautiloid? Could also be just layered mineral deposit with a fracture/weakness running through at a right angle to the layer, making it weather in that way. Hard to tell from the remaining shape. Best regards, J 1 Try to learn something about everything and everything about something Thomas Henry Huxley Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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