Just Wow!!! A very nice little Aturia!!!

[RJB]

  I was cleaning up and moving stuff around to get a bit more organized and this there was this little thing wrapped up in some newspaper in the very bottom of a box that I brought home about 2 or 3 days ago.  I unwraped it,,,,,,,, and Wow!!!   A very beautiful and very nice little Aturia in a small concretion.  Wow!!!   This must have been layin in there for about 15 years!  Ha!!!  Almost like christmas today!   Just glad I didnt throw the box away with out checking.  Wheeeeew!!  These are very very very hard to come by nowadays!!! 

 

RB

[Plantguy]

RB, Thats a real sweet beauty! Now quit covering that stuff up when it looks so good...its only ok when you cover up the crud and lose track of that kind of stuff cause it really dont matter---like I do all the time...LOL!

 

Thanks for showing us another gem thats definitely worthy of being on display....

 

Regards, Chris 

[Shellseeker]

Ron,

A Beauty!!!!  Keep on looking .  There's more gold in them there hills or in your case more Nautiloids in them there stored boxes.  A treasure hunt.   Jack

[caldigger]

I have a feeling your kids are going to wind up with some world class collections.

[RJB]

Thanks everyone.  This little beauty already has a place in one of my display cabinets.

 

RB

[siteseer]

18 hours ago, Darktooth said:

Very nice ammo! Glad you found it..........again!

 

 

Actually, it's not an ammonite.  Jack's right.  It's a nautiloid.  It is something very unusual because it's not from the Mesozoic nor Paleozoic.  It's from the Miocene (guessing the Astoria Formation).  Nautiloids nearly died out at the end of the Cretaceous but the survivors rediversified during the Paleocene.  You don't see many of those but you can find them in Texas without the shell and rather large ones too.

 

Nautiloids seem to have gone in decline by the Late Eocene and Oligocene during a trend of cooling climates worldwide.  However, climates warmed significantly during the Early Miocene and into the Middle Miocene, and in those rocks in some places especially the Pacific Northwest, you see nautiloids.  They are not common finds even when you know where to look.  At least one site in Oregon yields nice specimens with shell preserved.  You can find them without the shell too and see that they are replaced with chalcedony.  Sometimes, those have a milky color; others are actually translucent.  In the same region you can get them with their shells in the same nodules as the crabs.  Years ago, I was there when a friend found one in a nodule (that one might have been Oligocene) but he was going to glue it back and reprep it because some of the shell broke and the nodule break was not along the best angle.  The one pictured in this thread is a rare beauty - complete and with great color.

 

I have heard of Cenozoic nautiloids from France and Australia as well.  

 

Jess

[Nothos]

What a little jewel ! 

[RJB]

siteseer:  Very well put. 

 

RB