Calling All Nerds

[MikeD]

Hmmm. With the new and improved focus on the "sutures", I'm thinking it is not ammonite, but just a rock. Mr. Edonihce has a point. Had me fooled at first. Still, I would put it in my box of weird rocks. Maybe a fossil EKG?

[PaleoRon]

It looks like the pattern goes all the way through the piece. I've never seen anything other than an ammonite with that type of pattern. Might just be a very weathered piece of a very large specimen.

[chrisrobertson]

The cracks run completely through the rock.

[Auspex]

The rock has things in it (per the end view of the broken end). To me, this means that it is either a chunk of eroded and water-worn lithified sediment, or sediment filled cavity, or maybe both.

[Jesta384]

again...PLACE IT ON A TABLE WITH LOTS OF NATURAL LIGHT. take it out to your porch during the day time. and dont hold it! take pictures of all angles. i have freinds with the droid and its capable of better pictures. try asking "Manuel". he's a nice guy.

[Scott S.]

Hi there,

A little late in seeing the post but I'm pretty sure the "sutures" are stylolites. It's a feature that forms when lithified rock layers get really compressed and the heat reliquifies and remineralizes softer layers creating that zig zag pattern. The other more subtle patterns you circled in the picture could be smaller fossils imbedded in other layers. Hope that helps!

Scott

[Wrangellian]

I will bet dollars to donuts those are sutures in that first pic - either ammonite or bone, I'm not sure. The irregularity could be accounted for by the uneven erosion the piece has gone thru, but definitely sutures.