UAE Steinkerns

[MrBones]

Do you think it would be possible to id these steinkerns? I would like to get a bit more specific than "gastropods". They come from Al Ain (an Emirate in the United Arab Emirates) close to Jebel Hafeet and are Eocene to Miocene in age.

 

These two shells have little bumps as well as lines running along the outside.

 

 

This shell has two rows of bumps running along the outside.

 

 

This steinkern is still in its matrix, you can see the shell had short spines on the exterior.

 

 

This one looks like a spondylus shell

 

 

[Ludwigia]

As you probably already know, it's not always easy to identify steinkerns even down to the genus, let alone the species, since the tell-tale ornamentation cannot be seen clearly enough, if at all. The best thing you could do is to find detailed papers on the fauna of this Formation and at best the specific site, and make comparisons according to shape and size. That should at least narrow things down a bit, depending on the similarities within the ranges of the various species. Then you could at least perhaps add a name with a question mark beside it.