Found in my ‘crystal’ pile

[June P]

Any ideas???

I found these in what I refer to as my ‘crystal pile’.

it’s an area in my new construction neighborhood in north east Bexar County, Texas. The soil in which I found these was a rich black that reminds me of Irish peat bogs. It’s rich, black soil with a crumbly texture. The crystalline structures some which I believe are also petrified trees and these mystery creatures all have an orange color (possibly due to the heavy iron deposits also in the area). The crystalline structures and these creatures were found beside limestone. 

I was digging for the beautiful crystals and found these. They stood out and I immediately thought one looked like an esophagus and the other like a vertebrae, although I knew they weren’t what they initially appeared to be. One which was like a half ‘ring’, appeared to have the same ‘ribbing’ as the one resembling an esophagus.

The ribbed worm like one is about 4” long including the broken portion which laying in the ground with a part broken off .it’s about 1.5 “ high.

The vertebrae looking one is about 2” wide by 1” by 1” high.

The half ‘ring’ one is about 1.5” and the thickness if the ring is about .5”.

any help is, as always appreciated!

[JohnJ]

I'm seeing cool calcitic speleotherms (think of broken bits of cave formations).  No fossils.  It is very likely that local construction cut through small caves, vugs, etc.  The resultant debris is bulldozed around with the local soils for landscaping.  Nice finds.

[Ludwigia]

I agree with JohnJ. Drip a bit of acetic acid onto one of them. If it bubbles, then you can be certain that it's calcite, although I'm just about 100% sure already.

[abyssunder]

I'm in the speleothem camp with the others. Also, there might be "dogtooth calcite" in some areas of the little specimen.

 

[June P]

Wow! So impressed with the knowledge here! Thanks, y’all…interesting for me that what looked like an ancient animal fossil  is actually stalactites/ stalagmite features (forgive my lay description).

I’m not so literate with using this forum, so please forgive my duplicate topics. Thanks for the patience!!!

Fascinating. So the area these were found is somewhat shallow and it makes me wonder how these stalactite growths i dug (about 8-10 inches below the surface got there (forgive my lay description). The hole I dug out does have lime stone intermixed- in fact the crystalline formation in one spot is actually ‘fused’ to a nice white piece of limestone. I’ll attach a photo to this thread of the area I dug, this weekend.

Recently while digging I mused about inadvertently opening a void while digging and discovering a cave!!! We have limestone caves not far north of our neighborhood. Seems I wasn’t too far off by my imaginings -thanks !