jrussell1495 Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 hello, I have found several pieces of this bone, coral ? I had just assumed it was a coral type but I saw a piece in the store and it was labeled whale bone, It was found in northern California on the beaches I also have a large piece about 50 pounds or so. thanks for any help Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrussell1495 Posted August 12, 2008 Author Share Posted August 12, 2008 heres the picture...maybe well I guess not, I upload the pic and then it justs disappears I'll try again later Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeD Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 Resize the pic to be smaller and try again. If it works, it should show up in the "Manage Current Attachments" list. I have noticed that some larger pictures seem to upload, but don't, even though they are under the 2MB limit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrussell1495 Posted August 12, 2008 Author Share Posted August 12, 2008 ok trying with a smaller pic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northern Sharks Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 Looks like coral to me. Bone is porous as well, but not THAT porous. There's no limit to what you can accomplish when you're supposed to be doing something else Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MOROPUS Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 Mmmm! I`t looks annelid to me...Sorry, no mammal,no coral! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MOROPUS Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 Some sort of Sabelaria sp.? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auspex Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 I think the "pores" are too irregular to be coral; they also lack any internal structure. Could it be of volcanic origin? "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eero59 Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 I collect weathered fossil Miocene whalebone like that, it washes up on the beach in Northern California, at Bolinas. Modern whale bone has that same porous structure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boesse Posted August 13, 2008 Share Posted August 13, 2008 Naw, I know what that stuff is. Its a tube worm colony. That stuff washes ashore all over Nor Cal... I've seen people calling it brain coral before. Keep looking though! Bolinas has all sorts of great stuff. Its also the type locality of "Carcharodon branneri", a synonym of C. megalodon. Bobby Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RJB Posted August 13, 2008 Share Posted August 13, 2008 Bobby hit that one on the nail head. Tube worms for sure. Thats not a fossil one, but in some areas, especialy the Falore Formation, you can find tons of this stuff. We just left it behind. RB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eero59 Posted August 13, 2008 Share Posted August 13, 2008 This is why I think it is whale bone. I've been diving 20 yr or so around No. and central CA coast, I've compared my sample (same as jrussel's) to modern whale bone seen in dive/surf shop windows, exhibits, in front of houses. Looks exactly the same to me. This pic compares textures of my sample, jrussels and an alaskan whale vertebra carving. Now it's possible, just possible I'm crazy, but this looks like a match. I know of no worm tubes that look like it. Let me know what you think. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eero59 Posted August 14, 2008 Share Posted August 14, 2008 Here are our suspects again, now compared to the reef-building tube worm Phragmatopoma californica. The worm tubes are a more regular honeycomb pattern. In addition, colonial tube worms, in CA and elsewhere in the world, make their tubes out of cemented sand grains and/or shell detritus, not at all like our samples on the left. I'm fairly confident what we have is exactly what your label states: whale bone. Fossil or more recent, I can't say. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auspex Posted August 14, 2008 Share Posted August 14, 2008 I'm fairly confident what we have is exactly what your label states: whale bone. Fossil or more recent, I can't say. Pretty compelling; you've gone the extra mile on this one! "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tracer Posted August 15, 2008 Share Posted August 15, 2008 If you analyze individual "cells" of the specimen, it doesn't make sense that worms did it. Unless of course they were worms on drugs. I don't know anything about the type of worm alleged to have been at work here, but I've studied Serpula worm tubes, and I'm creative enough to imagine how I would do things if I were a worm, and I wouldn't do them like that. Then again, if I were a bone, and just trying to grow strong structurally, but still keep enough porosity inside to keep my buoyancy up and be able to absorb and dissipate gases, then I might grow like that. So for me, the answer is pretty simple. It's a Swiss sponge. P.S. - If you find yourself trying to understand how a guy must think to post stuff like this, give it up. If you could understand, then you'd be like me, and you don't want to go there... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auspex Posted August 15, 2008 Share Posted August 15, 2008 ...It's a Swiss sponge. It's a FOSSIL LOOFA! (Say it aloud; it's fun! Really!) "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eero59 Posted August 15, 2008 Share Posted August 15, 2008 If you analyze individual "cells" of the specimen, it doesn't make sense that worms did it. Unless of course they were worms on drugs. I don't know anything about the type of worm alleged to have been at work here, but I've studied Serpula worm tubes, Exactly. the holes are of irregular size and shape with common walls, not individual Serpula-like calcareous tubes packed together. Galeolaria caespitosa in Austrailia forms masses of calcareous tubes, but would not be mistaken for our specimen on closer inspection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boesse Posted August 15, 2008 Share Posted August 15, 2008 Sorry, but that just plain doesn't look like any whale bone I've ever seen - and I've seen a LOT of it. That stuff you've got washes ashore in huge chunks, sometimes up to over a foot across - I've seen it at Bolinas myself, and I've seen it near San Francisco, Half Moon Bay, Santa Cruz, etc. etc... Additionally, the whalebone that does occur at Bolinas doesn't look like that. Its extremely hard, and has concretionary sediment infilling all the pores. Also, the "walls" between the holes are way too thick, and the holes themselves are long and tubular, and go every-which way; in a whale bone, they more or less are oriented in generally the same direction. Trust me - I've seen huge chunks of that same blue-greyish stuff wash ashore everywhere along the California coast - its not whalebone, and it definitely ain't Bolinas whalebone. (You can really trust me on the last point - I spent three hours at UC Berkeley looking at whale bones from Bolinas) Bobby Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tracer Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 It sounds like ya'll are starting to come around to my theory of a Swiss sponge. I doubt they have any Swiss sponge at Berkeley for comparison, however, because Berkeley is not in Sweden. What if it ends up really being some kind of a worm colony that lives in whales? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eero59 Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 Sorry, but that just plain doesn't look like any whale bone I've ever seen - and I've seen a LOT of it. That stuff you've got washes ashore in huge chunks, sometimes up to over a foot across - I've seen it at Bolinas myself, and I've seen it near San Francisco, Half Moon Bay, Santa Cruz, etc. etc...Additionally, the whalebone that does occur at Bolinas doesn't look like that. Its extremely hard, and has concretionary sediment infilling all the pores. Also, the "walls" between the holes are way too thick, and the holes Bobby I have bags of the material you're talking about, and this this stuff does look different. If something did live in the holes, it got well cleaned out after death. Whatever it is, it's still interesting. Someone in the area must know what did create this, I'll have to keep looking, thanks! Art Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyguy784 Posted August 16, 2008 Share Posted August 16, 2008 Eero, after looking at your comparison photos, I vote whale bone. They're identical. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eero59 Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 Appears so to me, too. However, I haven't seen everything yet; if this stuff is that common, someone should be able to provide a positive ID. I'll keep looking and post what I find out, thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Metopocetus Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 http://www.geotimes.org/aug04/WebExtra080504.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auspex Posted August 17, 2008 Share Posted August 17, 2008 http://www.geotimes.org/aug04/WebExtra080504.html WOW! (See my "signatere statement", below). "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrussell1495 Posted August 19, 2008 Author Share Posted August 19, 2008 Thank you all for all the comments I have a much larger piece about 40 pounds but I cant seem to get the pic small enough I'll keep trying tho Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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