Pamar Posted December 20, 2018 Share Posted December 20, 2018 Good day all, I’m fairly new to the hobby but have spent many hours coming Cape Town beaches(South Africa) in search of fossils. I Know both aquatic and land mammal fossils wash up on the beach and would like help identifying my latest find if it is even a fossil at all.It appears to be a bone fragment of some sort.i will continue to add more photos. Thanks P. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamar Posted December 20, 2018 Author Share Posted December 20, 2018 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamar Posted December 20, 2018 Author Share Posted December 20, 2018 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamar Posted December 20, 2018 Author Share Posted December 20, 2018 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ynot Posted December 20, 2018 Share Posted December 20, 2018 Welcome to TFF! Looks like a piece of asphalt to Me. Does it stink? what happens when You hold a flame to it? Darwin said: " Man sprang from monkeys." Will Rogers said: " Some of them didn't spring far enough." My Fossil collection - My Mineral collection My favorite thread on TFF. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamar Posted December 20, 2018 Author Share Posted December 20, 2018 11 minutes ago, ynot said: Welcome to TFF! Looks like a piece of asphalt to Me. Does it stink? what happens when You hold a flame to it? It passes the flame test without any smell and is the same material as the other more common fossils I find (teeth). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordTrilobite Posted December 20, 2018 Share Posted December 20, 2018 Possibly a wrist or ankle bone? 1 Olof Moleman AKA Lord Trilobite Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bronzviking Posted December 21, 2018 Share Posted December 21, 2018 Welcome to the forum from rainy Florida. It definitely looks like an bone fragment to me. Is this one fossil in pictures? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SailingAlongToo Posted December 21, 2018 Share Posted December 21, 2018 Hello from Virginia, 2 hours south of Washington, D.C. @Boesse may be able to help. Do you happen to know anything about the local geology? 1 Don't know much about history Don't know much biology Don't know much about science books......... Sam Cooke - (What A) Wonderful World Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamar Posted December 21, 2018 Author Share Posted December 21, 2018 7 hours ago, Bronzviking said: Welcome to the forum from rainy Florida. It definitely looks like an bone fragment to me. Is this one fossil in pictures? Yes it’s one fossil from multiple angles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamar Posted December 21, 2018 Author Share Posted December 21, 2018 7 hours ago, SailingAlongToo said: Hello from Virginia, 2 hours south of Washington, D.C. @Boesse may be able to help. Do you happen to know anything about the local geology? Fossils of Miocene and/or Pliocene age (12-3 million years), when the sea level was over 40 m above the present, have been recovered from the beach at the lagoon mouth. Tankard (1975) notes the existence of Miocene marine deposits with fossils near Ysterplaat, and submerged late Tertiary deposits at -10 m just off Milnerton, from which fossils derive. At the mouth of the Milnerton Lagoon J. Rogers (University of Cape Town, pers. comm.) cored through some 3 m of shelly marine deposit before striking bedrock. The fossils deposited on the beach at Milnerton Lagoon are mainly of whales, but include shark teeth and a small terrestrial element that includes a Gomphotherium (ancestral elephant). Equid and rhinoceros, may also fall within this time period. " - G. Avery. 1995. Archaeological and Palaeontological Survey: Milnerton Lagoon Mouth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Tahan Posted December 22, 2018 Share Posted December 22, 2018 Does look like a possible bone....one pic kinda makes it look like the end of a bone where it meets a joint like a knee joint. I can’t say anything else or really stand by my comments....just noting my observations 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnBrewer Posted December 22, 2018 Share Posted December 22, 2018 @Harry Pristis might know John Map of UK fossil sites Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bronzviking Posted December 22, 2018 Share Posted December 22, 2018 It looks like a large land or marine mammal bone to me, possibly a whale. What do you guys think? @Shellseeker @PrehistoricFlorida @DPS Ammonite Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shellseeker Posted December 23, 2018 Share Posted December 23, 2018 @Pamar My fossil expertise is North America based, and I have no strong view on whether it applies to your hunting grounds. I keep looking at your photos, and I am bouncing back and forth on whether I think this is bone. It might be. Do you have experience in finding bone in this area? Is the texture and consistency comparable to other bones found in this area? I have found mastodon foot bones approximately the same size, but your bone is different.... I am not that familiar with whale bones, but your bone seems a little too complex to be whale bones (e.g Humerus) that I have seen. Sorry to be so little help, If bone , it is one I have not previously seen. I would lean to land mammal over marine mammal. 2 The White Queen ".... in her youth she could believe "six impossible things before breakfast" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamar Posted December 23, 2018 Author Share Posted December 23, 2018 12 hours ago, Shellseeker said: @Pamar My fossil expertise is North America based, and I have no strong view on whether it applies to your hunting grounds. I keep looking at your photos, and I am bouncing back and forth on whether I think this is bone. It might be. Do you have experience in finding bone in this area? Is the texture and consistency comparable to other bones found in this area? I have found mastodon foot bones approximately the same size, but your bone is different.... I am not that familiar with whale bones, but your bone seems a little too complex to be whale bones (e.g Humerus) that I have seen. Sorry to be so little help, If bone , it is one I have not previously seen. I would lean to land mammal over marine mammal. @Shellseeker the fossil is very consistent to other more common ones I find ( usually vertebrae) in the area almost daily - this one grabbed my attention because it seems like a far more complex fragment than I usually find. thanks for trying to help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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