Fossil or Manmade?

[Jellybean07]

Hello! I found this at a cretaceous seabed which also has heavy foot traffic. The "white" circles look to have an opalescent sheen much like slight mother-of-pearl, but I'm not entirely convinced whether or not itv is Fossil or man-made. Any ideas? It really is tiny.

(ps please excuse my horrible nail polish and the pants overwintering indoors in the background)

[Fossildude19]

This looks man made to me.

Try to heat a needle with an open flame then see if you can puncture the item.

 

[Al Dente]

Looks like a piece of safety glass, maybe part of a car windshield.

[Kane]

I agree that it looks like a piece of tempered glass with the characteristic shatter patterning. 

[Ludwigia]

I agree with the others, but I'd still like to see a close-up of the pants

[daves64]

4 hours ago, Ludwigia said:

I agree with the others, but I'd still like to see a close-up of the pants

[Paleorunner]

Yes ! It seems to have a similar pattern to the fragments of tempered glass when it is broken.
But just like @Ludwigia  I would also like to know what the pants riddle is. 

 

 

[daves64]

15 minutes ago, Paleorunner said:

 I would also like to know what the pants riddle is. 

You can see them in the first pic, just very out of focus. P(L)ants.. 

[Ludwigia]

1 hour ago, daves64 said:

You can see them in the first pic, just very out of focus. P(L)ants.. 

Aha!

[abyssunder]

I'm wondering why the specimen in question looks close to the one below determined as a counter septarian structure?

link:

" In a less spectacular version of such counter septarian structures, the tangential cracks did not propagate spirally. Instead they formed a round knob in the center of each first-order polygon, thus mimicking the nuclei in a cellular tissue (Fig. 15 (d)). This suggests that the defoliating cracks started from the polygonal cracks of the previous order and propagated towards the center of the enclosed area. "

Edited December 15, 2021 by abyssunder

[Jellybean07]

@daves64 @Ludwigia @Paleorunner.  Lol I meant to say "plants overwintering"! It's a young scarlet sumac tree Thank you everyone for the help! I had a feeling but no clue what the little circles in it were so thought it may be worth it to ask! Thank you all for your knowledge!

[Jellybean07]

@abyssunder That looks cool! What are counter septarian structures?

[Jellybean07]

@abyssunder Intriguing, the shapes are very similar! and there are opalescent specimens pictures in search results on Google images,  but they all seem more rounded.  Maybe because they were polished? (Sorry I'm showing how inexperienced I am with fossils,  haha! But they are so much fun to learn about and correct!)

[Jellybean07]

Oh! I didn't even think but could this be related? Most of the molluscs I've found have this on them.  It does kind of look similar... what do ya'll think? It may not be related,  but what is the stuff on the molluscs? something I read said maybe some sort of boring sponge? Or entobia?  https://woostergeologists.scotblogs.wooster.edu/2014/01/26/woosters-fossils-of-the-week-trace-fossils-making-ghostly-shells-upper-cretaceous-of-mississippi/

I am adding photos of these, the last in which I placed the possible-safety-glass in the middle

[abyssunder]

7 hours ago, Jellybean07 said:

Oh! I didn't even think but could this be related? Most of the molluscs I've found have this on them.  It does kind of look similar... what do ya'll think? It may not be related,  but what is the stuff on the molluscs? something I read said maybe some sort of boring sponge? Or entobia?  https://woostergeologists.scotblogs.wooster.edu/2014/01/26/woosters-fossils-of-the-week-trace-fossils-making-ghostly-shells-upper-cretaceous-of-mississippi/

I am adding photos of these, the last in which I placed the possible-safety-glass in the middle

Entobia isp. is a good possibility.

Edited December 16, 2021 by abyssunder

[Mahnmut]

 

Hello.

Those last ones look like Beekite rings on fossil shells (where else)?

I never heard of it until recently, and suddenly there are a lot of entries with it.

I also want some Beekite!

Concerning the similarity between septarian structures and broken tempered glass, they are both formed by the same physics. Tempered glass is under high tension, therefore every damage leads to fissures all over the windowpane nearly at once, while as far as I understand septarian formation, they are fissures in shrunken clay, which also form relatively uniformly through the volume, other than a fracture in "normal" glass for example, that spreads from the point of impact.

Often these structures resemble voronoi fractals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram

 

Best Regards,

J

 

[abyssunder]

10 minutes ago, Mahnmut said:

 

Hello.

Those last ones look like Beekite rings on fossil shells (where else)?

I never heard of it until recently, and suddenly there are a lot of entries with it.

I also want some Beekite!

Concerning the similarity between septarian structures and broken tempered glass, they are both formed by the same physics. Tempered glass is under high tension, therefore every damage leads to fissures all over the windowpane nearly at once, while as far as I understand septarian formation, they are fissures in shrunken clay, which also form relatively uniformly through the volume, other than a fracture in "normal" glass for example, that spreads from the point of impact.

Often these structures resemble voronoi fractals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram

 

Best Regards,

J

 

I don't think there are Beekite rings. 

[abyssunder]

9 hours ago, Jellybean07 said:

@abyssunder That looks cool! What are counter septarian structures?

Click on the topic "We can't figger this one out" and you will see the answer to your question. BTW, it's a very good topic! 

[Mahnmut]

Ok, I stand corrected.

the little foursided piece in the last pic reminded me of pictures of beekite I saw recently here on the forum which is my only experience with those. Looking closer I admit they look different.

So beekite aside, are these biological remains heavily changed in appearance by mineralization, are the structures themselves fossils, or is it all pure geology?  Sorry, I missed your ID of entobia reading about beekite, so it seems the shapes are mainly biological.

I go on learning.

(talking about the new pics, not the glassy first one.)

Best Regards,

J

Edited December 16, 2021 by Mahnmut
additional info

[Jellybean07]

On 12/15/2021 at 6:33 AM, Fossildude19 said:

This looks man made to me.

Try to heat a needle with an open flame then see if you can puncture the item.

 

Thank you! It didn't puncture, just slid on the glass

[Jellybean07]

@Al Dente @Fossildude19 @Ludwigia @Mahnmut @abyssunder @daves64 @Paleorunner

 

Thank you all for such an awesome conversation! So,  I love my fossils, but is there anyone who would want to give them a new home? I'm trying to downsize and don't want to throw them away because they're so cool,  also I feel like they're lacking their deserve recognition by me and my lack of knowledge. I collected them from a highly-trafficked disc golf field at Mississippi State University, trying to save them from the landscapers while the hill eroded away around them, land already donated a bunch to the museum there, and they're pretty cool

PM me if interested.

[Jellybean07]

I can post pictures of the full collection,  I just have to gather it all together haha

[abyssunder]

Thank you for your generous offer, but in my case, I can't cover even the shipping cost for Romania, unfortunately. I'm pretty sure someone from here will be glad to have the nice specimens in his collection. 

 

Edited December 19, 2021 by abyssunder

[Ludwigia]

Thanks for the offer, but being a European, I'm in a similar position as Abyssunder, and besides, my collection has reached the point where I'm rather reducing than expanding it.

[Jellybean07]

@abyssunder @Ludwigia Thank you! I hope you have a wonderful holiday season, and stay safe with all the craziness in this world