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Pseudofossils, Pareidolia, And Other Rorschachery


Pilobolus

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It's just part of an ammonite. But it wasn't until I got it home and cleaned it up that I was able to see the suture lines.

Edited by claire01
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A friend of mine sent me this photo and was hoping it was part of a pelvis:


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I replied that it was really a clutch of raptor eggs: one missing, one (on the right) intact, and one (on the left) broken with the baby raptor still curled up inside.

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Lower Carboniferous jellyfish, actually just a compaction cone complete with radial striae (and brachiopod fragment), had me wondering for a while though...

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Tarquin

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In Indiana I came across a creek bed that had cut into some limestone strata. I immediately saw a "skull" that had me going for a while, but then looking around I realized that this eroded limestone was making all kinds of interesting convoluted shapes. I collected "vertebra", "limb bones", and "ribs", and then I put them next to the "skull" to make a "deer". It was pretty awe-inspiring from 20 feet away. :D

I wonder if anybody found that critter, and reported it to the Smithsonian.

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Juvenile theropod skull found in a dry wash in Keystone, Colorado, 1997.

Note the fabulous (and rare!) soft tissue preservation of the eyes.

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I hesitate to put this one in here as I think it might be a worked piece of cherty material. When I nabbed it, on-edge, it looked clam-like tho'

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“Chrysanthemum Stone” (celestine) from Yonghe in China.

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Dendritic pyrolusite on Late Jurassic limestone from Solnhofen in Germany. This fascinating moss was the principal nesting material for the Archaeopteryx found in the same strata. ;)

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“Desert Owl” (gypsum concretion) from Tunisia.

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"Zebra Stone" (sedimentary quartz with cerisite) from the east Kimberley, Western Australia

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Pyrite “egg” from Hunan, China (layed by a goose, obviously) :D

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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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300 myo "Peace sign", Mazon creek nod.

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A primate ear cleverly disguised as a Fiddlehead. Very rare! ;)

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~Charlie~

"There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why.....i dream of things that never were, and ask why not?" ~RFK
->Get your Mosasaur print
->How to spot a fake Trilobite
->How to identify a CONCRETION from a DINOSAUR EGG

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Hi,

“Chrysanthemum Stone” (celestine) from Yonghe in China.

attachicon.gifChrysanthemum Stone.JPG

What it is really? Some time ago, I saw many photos of that...

Coco

----------------------
OUTIL POUR MESURER VOS FOSSILES : ici

Ma bibliothèque PDF 1 (Poissons et sélaciens récents & fossiles) : ici
Ma bibliothèque PDF 2 (Animaux vivants - sans poissons ni sélaciens) : ici
Mâchoires sélaciennes récentes : ici
Hétérodontiques et sélaciens : ici
Oeufs sélaciens récents : ici
Otolithes de poissons récents ! ici

Un Greg...

Badges-IPFOTH.jpg.f4a8635cda47a3cc506743a8aabce700.jpg Badges-MOTM.jpg.461001e1a9db5dc29ca1c07a041a1a86.jpg

 

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Cool topic.

Some of these objects would definitely give me a heart attack if I saw them in the field, especially that "placoderm skull".

Don

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. . .

Dendritic pyrolusite on Late Jurassic limestone from Solnhofen in Germany. This fascinating moss was the principal nesting material for the Archaeopteryx found in the same strata. ;)

attachicon.gifPyrolusite.jpg

. . .

Apparently these are manganese dendrites, but not pyrolusite.

MINDAT.ORG

Pyrolusite

Rutile Group

Usually found as matte-black powdery to fibrous crusts, sometimes in botryoidal aggregates or columnar, more rarely as druzes of small prismatic to tabular, dark grey metallic crystals.

NOTE: No valid pyrolusite dendrites are known. Supposed specimens of pyrolusite in dendritic form turn out to be other Mn-oxide species (e.g., minerals of the cryptomelane group, birnessite, nsutite, todorokite, etc.) upon being examined in the proper laboratory setting for characterizing these difficult to identify minerals. See Potter, R. and Rossman, G, 1979, Mineralogy of Manganese Dendrites and Coatings, American Mineralogist, v. 64, p. 1219-1226

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http://pristis.wix.com/the-demijohn-page

 

What seest thou else

In the dark backward and abysm of time?

---Shakespeare, The Tempest

 

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some kind of bird-billed camel.

Edit: with the flaming hair and wedge-shaped tail, I'm sure it is with the Paleo-Pokemon lineage.

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Edited by Pilobolus
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some kind of bird-billed camel.

Edit: with the flaming hair and wedge-shaped tail, I'm sure it is with the Paleo-Pokemon lineage.

This Pokemon was called "Pi".

"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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This Pokemon was called "Pi".

Took a while to dawn on me, but at least it wasn't 3.14159 days before I caught on.

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