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Fossil or just weird matrix?


BuddingPaleo

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Ok, so all I got is that I'm waiting for it to say feed me Seymour. Whatever it is, I love it. I apologize for the penny for size, but it's in a large "boulder" (about 40 lbs, maybe the size of a large watermelon) of mother of pearl looking stuff and is hard to access. Has lots of neat little critters in lots of nooks and boreholes. Anyway, not sure if this is anything. Its convex, and spongy feeling, kind of like stiff crepe paper. Y'all seem to have a whole lotta knowledge, thanks for letting me tap it.

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~~.jpg

 

Weird. Any idea as to the source of this boulder? IE, is it a natural formation, or could it be a man-made 'coquina concrete'?

The fact that the brain-like mass in the shell cavity is resilient tells us that it (the filling material) is not fossil.

"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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Oops, sorry. Florida. It's let me find a picture, or take one, of the whole thing. I'm almost certain that it's not man made florida cement. * I should add by spongy I meant fibery, it is quite fragile. I touched it once and what I touched crumbled. 

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2 minutes ago, BuddingPaleo said:

Oops, sorry. Florida. It's let me find a picture, or take one, of the whole thing. I'm almost certain that it's not man made florida cement. 

Where exactly in Florida? :) 

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Southwest, out near corkscrew swamp. Barely fort myers (the stix needs a ride out to me lol).

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It's a pretty big boy, I tried to get different better pictures, but my tremor is not cooperating. The cucumber thing I assume is a part of a bivalve or something, but there are interesting bits everywhere on it. It's flaky, like a croissant almost, but a shiny one.

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Now what to do, I really like him, but I don't need the rest. Lol That would make sense though. I only find that in certain areas, then the fossils get better to one side of it, and disappear on the other. I know the quality I'm likely to find by where I'm standing. I'm having a blast, if you can't tell. Thanks for the info! I didn't know it could form naturally too. 

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I was sent a few chunks of what looks to be the same stuff from one of our Floridian members. I think he had called it Ocala Limestone. It is filled with bivalve and gastropod imprints and steinkerns.

Here is a sample.

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Definitely very similar. Wonder what else might be hiding in there. Gonna go read up. Thanks!

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I suppose once there was a bivalve whose shell was bioeroded (probably by sponges and maybe worms) and ulteriorly dissolved leaving a steinkern which looks also bored and wheathered. What is still visible on the right side looks to be the remnant of the internal mold of the shell, in my opinion.

 

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Might it be from one of these fellas? Just got his base uncovered. The kind of pie tin squinching around the edges matches and there's a cluster of them in the vicinity on the same piece. 

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On 6/3/2018 at 1:33 PM, BuddingPaleo said:

Might it be from one of these fellas? Just got his base uncovered. The kind of pie tin squinching around the edges matches and there's a cluster of them in the vicinity on the same piece. 

 

Could be..

I've never had the money to get some of this stuff to play around with but take a look at this article on the locale below. Maybe there is a small lot that can be found or a substitute. 

Anyways, Dr. Portell used RTV silicon rubber to make casts of their finds and you can see much more detail of some of the ornamentation particularly the gastropods/snails. 

Has some photos of some of the finds there. 

Honeymoon Island Beach Nourishment Field Trip Southeastern Geological Society Guidebook No. 64

INVERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY OF HONEYMOON ISLAND, PINELLAS COUNTY, FLORIDA by:

Roger W. Portell, B. Alex Kittle, and Sean W. Roberts Florida Museum of Natural History University of Florida .............................................. 24

http://segs.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/SEGS-Guidebook-64-2015-1.pdf

Regards, Chris 

Shell matrix.jpg

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Awesome link! Thanks! That'll be my next read.

I'll look into the silicon, for sure. Would be really awesome to do. 

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Huh, Wal-Mart and Amazon have a small silicone mold solution for $20. Kind of surprises me. I have bunches of candidates I could think of. Wonder if that'd work...

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