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Reptile Head Fossil


Mathewhepplewhite

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I recently tried all the museums in my area including Newcastle without being told what it was exactly. So I thought to myself I have a mate who works the X-ray machine at the courthouse I will ask him to X-ray it and to our surprise confirmed that there is in fact organic material that from what I can gather showed up as a bright orange area on the image. Which tells me that there is still a section that has not completely fossilized. Is this true and is it a fossil if the section where a neck would be shows up as organic.

Edited by Mathewhepplewhite
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Mathew, with all due respect to your friend, he is not likely a geologist and not likely an expert at interpreting the images of X-rayed rocks. As an example, you should take him a varied group of other things you accept as rocks and let him x-ray them too. You'll probably find similar anomalies to what you saw with the first rock. Again, you are ignoring some fundamentals in geology. Please read THIS topic about a recent "x-ray" done on some rocks.

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The human mind has the ability to believe anything is true.  -  JJ

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How does an X-ray (and a low-powered courthouse scanner at that) confirm that it is organic matter? Or that there is a section that is not completely fossilized?

This is all slightly delusional Magic Thinking. It is a rock, an inorganic artifact of normal geologic processes.

I am beginning to wonder whether you aren't just making sport of us...

"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!

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Ok. He had no hesitation claiming it was organic material. But I will post a copy of the image next week for you anyway. Please don't think I am being disrespectful by posting again but I will get to the bottom of this one way or another.

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“Security” Xray machines of the kind likely to be used in a courtroom do indeed show organic material as orange (as an industry convention rather than a true colour). But the technology relies on supplying information about the composition, density and thickness of an object’s internal structure. The screen creates a computer-generated false-colour “silhouette” of superimposed, overlapping shadows based on the density of structure at (almost) a molecular level.

For the purposes of security screening that’s good enough to determine organic from inorganic (which shows as blue). Mixed structures will usually show as green. But the machine is not actually identifying organic materials. It’s inferring them to be organic because they have a low density internal structure. Most usually, those machines are not going to be presented with material which has that kind of structure but is inorganic. They’re looking for guns and knives more than anything.

There could be all kinds of other materials which are of no interest to a security screener that might show as orange.

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Roger

I keep six honest serving-men (they taught me all I knew);Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who [Rudyard Kipling]

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Hmmmm, sometimes, Dr. Freud, a cigar is just a cigar. And a colored rock is just a colored rock.

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"_ Carl Sagen

No trees were killed in this posting......however, many innocent electrons were diverted from where they originally intended to go.

" I think, therefore I collect fossils." _ Me

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."__S. Holmes

"can't we all just get along?" Jack Nicholson from Mars Attacks

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Mathewhepplewhite

I'm going to ask you to look at the following 3 specimens

Click Here ... Click Here .... Click Here

How would you go about proving to the ones that found these specimens

what they found are rocks and not fossils ??

What do these shapes represent ?? ... Click Here

The finders could post X-ray images ...

but the specimens are still just interesting rocks.

What you found is a rock.

The 2nd picture in your 1st post brings a smile to my face

and would mount the rock in that position as a conversational piece.

I have several interesting rocks which I have found that I've kept

as conversational pieces.

If you still believe you're identification is correct ...

I would suggest chalking off this Internet discussion group as

the 1st step in research and network to find a well known Paleontologist

willing to examine your specimen in hand ... Let us know what he/she says.

:)

Flash from the Past (Show Us Your Fossils)
MAPS Fossil Show

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Assuming we are not being made sport of (for the sake of argument), getting "to the bottom of this one way or another" may not be the logical outcome. Not everything in Nature is "identifiable" - that's why we still do science. Also, even if there are one or two people expert enough in the world to say with precision what this is, you may never find them. Suffice it to say the combined knowledge of a good number of very seasoned people who know fossils have stated that it is not a fossil. There is not much more you could ask for if you suspect it is a fossil, except, of course ruling out magic, faith, or the like.

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Sometimes, we crush dreams. We have to, if that is where the evidence leads.

This is one I've had on my desk for 10 years. Crushed they guy's dream, I did.

I added the embellishments after he left.

Snake Head

Edited by RichW9090

The plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence".

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Sometimes, we crush dreams. We have to, if that is where the evidence leads.

This is one I've had on my desk for 10 years. Crushed they guy's dream, I did.

I added the embellishments after he left.

Rock Pythons are native to subsaharan Africa; wonder how it got here? :P

"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!

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Rock Pythons are native to subsaharan Africa; wonder how it got here? :P

The pet trade, most likely.

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Welcome to the forum :)

I believe the coloration of this specimen plays a role in the original identification; I feel it's also worth noting that color sensu stricto does not fossilize, certainly not in the colorful way we see here. Color patterns can sometimes fossilize, and some evidences of pigment can on exceedingly rare occasions be preserved, but it doesn't look like much and generally has to be analyzed microscopically and correlated to living analogs.

Thus said, you're far from the only one to error in ID like this; I remember finding my first "dinosaur", which was a mineral inclusion that resembled a small Parasaurolophus head. Some rocks can have a sick sense of humor.

Australia has a lot of good fossils though, and there's a lot of interesting stuff to be found :).

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I have a few fossils which I truly don't know for sure what they represent.

Wouldn't take a lot of effort to find out what they are.

However, I won't network them for an ID ...

Why ??

I want some fossils to sit and stare at and wonder ...

like I did, many years ago, when I first started fossil hunting.

:)

Flash from the Past (Show Us Your Fossils)
MAPS Fossil Show

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You might be interested in this:

http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/171592/view

It relates to what I said earlier. All of that is a fossil. None of it is "organic" in the sense that you used the word (unfossilized). It's completely mineralized to the extent that its rock. But the Xray machine is picking up on areas of different structural density (of the minerals) and showing them in different colours. High density minerals are showing in blue, low density in orange or yellow and medium density (or mixed) in green. I would guess that the blue exterior might have been pyrite for example and the orange areas might well have been calcite or perhaps partially hollow/porous. If the surrounding rock or mineral matrix had been present then the colour of that would also have been determined according to its structural density - not according to whether or not it was organic.

An operator can also change the sensitivity on these machines and make the same colours relate to different zones of density... as he might when trying to determine whether he's seeing a gun or a hairdryer inside a suitcase for example.

Edited by painshill
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Roger

I keep six honest serving-men (they taught me all I knew);Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who [Rudyard Kipling]

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I love this thread.

You guys are just adorable, being all patient and understanding, I don't know how you do it, over and over again, heck, even the kindest kindergarten teachers eventually snap.

I can also see the future! And not because I'm a nucular psisicist like Mat.

This guy will never believe you.

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...This guy will never believe you.

That is his prerogative. All we require is that the discussion remain civil.

"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!

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Besides, quantum physics...is still a long way from geology or paleontology, so your point would be? That somehow you managed an education in quantum physics without ever being able to properly manipulate a camera to photograph an obviously fossilized pebble with regards to receiving an online identification? Hmmm, just sayin', maybe you should just stick to your physics and leave the fossilized reptile head ID's to the pro's! ;)

P.s.- Welcome to the Forum and I hope any further ID's go better for you than this one!

Edited by PaleoTerra
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I love this thread.

You guys are just adorable, being all patient and understanding, I don't know how you do it, over and over again, heck, even the kindest kindergarten teachers eventually snap.

I second that.

Didnt enter the melee till now, cos english isnt my native langage.

You guys are showing up an endless patience i wouldnt be capable of.

This kind of thread tend to turn bad very fast on french forums.

kuddos

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Many of us are here because The Fossil Forum

has professional moderators.

...and some few are not, for the same reason. ;)

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"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!

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...and some few are not, for the same reason. ;)

Indeed.

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The human mind has the ability to believe anything is true.  -  JJ

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When I first saw this thread in its nascent state, I quickly navigated away as I've seen this sort of discussion many times, and it tends to head the same direction every time. My formal education has absolutely nothing to do with paleo. But I've been trained to look objectively at facts and ignore wishful thinking.

I've found a few nice fossils over the years, and have built a basic acumen of paleo. As a generalist, I've collected fossils of all types (including reptile skulls) and ages and noticed early on the general trends in fossil preservation, and this specimen fell well outside of those trends. I've asked lots of questions over the years, and have listened open mindedly to the experts who took the time to respond. So in addition to my own motivation, I'd have to say that one of the springboards in my learning has been the continued humility to listen to the fact based, supportable opinions derived from the experience of others. It is possible to ask 3 experts the same question and get 3 different opinions, but when it's 30...time to accept the mounting convergence of opinion.

Don't get too hooked on being right all the time. It's OK to wrong here - it happens to many of here at different times, and we don't hold grudges, so long as we accept the preponderance of evidence and move on.

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Grüße,

Daniel A. Wöhr aus Südtexas

"To the motivated go the spoils."

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When I first saw this thread in its nascent state, I quickly navigated away as I've seen this sort of discussion many times, and it tends to head the same direction every time. My formal education has absolutely nothing to do with paleo. But I've been trained to look objectively at facts and ignore wishful thinking.

I've found a few nice fossils over the years, and have built a basic acumen of paleo. As a generalist, I've collected fossils of all types (including reptile skulls) and ages and noticed early on the general trends in fossil preservation, and this specimen fell well outside of those trends. I've asked lots of questions over the years, and have listened open mindedly to the experts who took the time to respond. So in addition to my own motivation, I'd have to say that one of the springboards in my learning has been the continued humility to listen to the fact based, supportable opinions derived from the experience of others. It is possible to ask 3 experts the same question and get 3 different opinions, but when it's 30...time to accept the mounting convergence of opinion.

Don't get too hooked on being right all the time. It's OK to wrong here - it happens to many of here at different times, and we don't hold grudges, so long as we accept the preponderance of evidence and move on.

Well stated, Dan.

Kudos on your eloquence - thank you for putting words to my thoughts.

Regards,

    Tim    -  VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER

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