Fossil snail pleistocene

[Napoleon North]

Hi

 

This is fossil?Probably not, but I prefer to ask.

Location: near  hole cave,Twardovski Cave ,Kraków, Southern Poland

Age:?

[Peat Burns]

Could be late-Pleistocene or Holocene "sub-fossil" or recent.  It's probably going to be very difficult to know for sure in that kind of environment.  I believe this specimen is a terrestrial species.

[fifbrindacier]

I also think it is a terrestrial snail. Visually it makes me think about a planorbe but is the fossil flat or not ?

[Napoleon North]

And this shell?

[britishcanuk]

This is a modern snail shell. I have been collecting terrestrial gastropods shells for years and this is typical of a weathered shell. If it was at the surface it is probably less than 10 years old. 

[Peat Burns]

Visual appearance of late-Pleistocene and Holocene "subfossils" (i.e. not "mineralized") vs. recent macro-remains can be deceiving, and therefore is not a good means of estimating relative age.  One must have a diagnostic stratigraphic context or a diagnostic biological associate / assemblage (for relative dating) or some kind of radiometric date (for numerical dating).  As an example, this picture shows the freshwater gastropod Helisoma (Planorbella) campanulatum on the left and the freshwater bivalve Sphaerium sp. on the right.  Both of these were recovered from a marl stratum in a wetland and were directly associated with a mastodont skeleton radiocarbon (14C) dated at over 11,000 years old.  Note the portions of the periostracum still present on the bivalve.

 

 

This next photo shows the same two species.  But rather than having been excavated from deep within wetland sediments, I plucked these out of a stream last summer, and they are likely not much older than 1 year of age.

 

 

I do believe that the terrestrial snail from the cave is likely modern, but that presumption is not based on the appearance of the shell.