Chopper020 Posted August 8, 2019 Share Posted August 8, 2019 Good evening folks, I'm new here but was hoping someone could help me identify my find. Firstly I'll be honest and say I'm not even sure this is a fossil. I found it this evening on a beach walk. So it was found on Skegness beach, this is on the east coast of England at the northern end of the Wash, a bay on the North Sea. Skegness beach is mostly sand with a few pebbles and rocks. There are usually very few fossils on the beach and it's not an area known for it's fossils. Over the opposite side of the wash is the Norfolk coastline, this is mostly made up of cliffs with chalk, sandstone and flint I think, but there are more fossils in this area and some small material from the Norfolk coast does make it's way over the 15 to 20 miles and wash up on Skegness beach. This find (if it is a find) is unlike anything I've seen on Skegness beach before and is nothing like any other rocks, stones and pebbles in the area. My first thought was it way be a horseshoe crab fossil, but a quick check on here has me thinking this is not the case. My partner has suggested a small tortoise or turtle and it certainly has that type of shape to it, I'm not sure that the photo (I only seem to be able to add one photo) truly shows the shape but it's the best I can get. The photo is of what I would describe as the underside. Any help with identification is greatly appreciated, or advice on how to add further photos (sorry I'm really not a tech wizard) Thank you in advance for any help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chopper020 Posted August 8, 2019 Author Share Posted August 8, 2019 Sorry, I did take a photo with measurements but I couldn't upload this, the length is about 55mm about 40mm wide and 25mm deep but the top of the fossil is missing/worn away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chopper020 Posted August 8, 2019 Author Share Posted August 8, 2019 Ah, it seems if I reply I can add more photos. Sorry if this is not the correct way to do this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chopper020 Posted August 8, 2019 Author Share Posted August 8, 2019 I have six more photos but I'll make this the last one so as not to annoy anyone. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Herb Posted August 8, 2019 Share Posted August 8, 2019 my guess is a piece of septarian nodule 1 "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"_ Carl Sagen No trees were killed in this posting......however, many innocent electrons were diverted from where they originally intended to go. " I think, therefore I collect fossils." _ Me "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."__S. Holmes "can't we all just get along?" Jack Nicholson from Mars Attacks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abyssunder Posted August 8, 2019 Share Posted August 8, 2019 I'm wondering why it looks like that, for me. " We are not separate and independent entities, but like links in a chain, and we could not by any means be what we are without those who went before us and showed us the way. " Thomas Mann My Library Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fossildude19 Posted August 9, 2019 Share Posted August 9, 2019 Septarian nodule seems right, but I do see a slight resemblance to an internal cast of an echinoid. Tim - VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER VFOTM --- APRIL - 2015 __________________________________________________ "In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." John Muir ~ ~ ~ ~ ><))))( *> About Me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chopper020 Posted August 9, 2019 Author Share Posted August 9, 2019 Thank you for the identification. Your help is very much appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Kmiecik Posted August 9, 2019 Share Posted August 9, 2019 Judging by the back side I have to say NO to septarian. The highlighted area is definitely not a septarian feature: Enlarged, it appears to be a fracture. Mark. Fossil hunting is easy -- they don't run away when you shoot at them! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ludwigia Posted August 9, 2019 Share Posted August 9, 2019 31 minutes ago, Mark Kmiecik said: Judging by the back side I have to say NO to septarian. The highlighted area is definitely not a septarian feature: Enlarged, it appears to be a fracture. What do you think it is then? I'd still say septarian despite the supposed fracture. Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger http://www.steinkern.de/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Kmiecik Posted August 9, 2019 Share Posted August 9, 2019 5 minutes ago, Ludwigia said: What do you think it is then? I'd still say septarian despite the supposed fracture. Looks like a crushed carapace to me. Septarians are not a surface feature on one side of a concretion. Judging by the reverse of this piece it appears to be a conglomerate and none of the features that make this specimen look like a septarian exist except on its surface. Mark. Fossil hunting is easy -- they don't run away when you shoot at them! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ludwigia Posted August 9, 2019 Share Posted August 9, 2019 8 minutes ago, Mark Kmiecik said: Looks like a crushed carapace to me. Septarians are not a surface feature on one side of a concretion. Judging by the reverse of this piece it appears to be a conglomerate and none of the features that make this specimen look like a septarian exist except on its surface. I think what you're seeing on the reverse side is just mineral infill, the stone above which having been weathered away. I can't for the life of me recognize a carapace in this and besides, the chances of finding a crab at Skegness are a million to one, whereas septarians are abundant. Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger http://www.steinkern.de/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Kmiecik Posted August 9, 2019 Share Posted August 9, 2019 13 minutes ago, Ludwigia said: I think what you're seeing on the reverse side is just mineral infill, the stone above which having been weathered away. I can't for the life of me recognize a carapace in this and besides, the chances of finding a crab at Skegness are a million to one, whereas septarians are abundant. There is no way a septarian could weather like that. I didn't say it IS a carapace, I said it LOOKS like one. It looks like one to me because I'm using my eyes and not yours, and I don't have the decades of experience identifying carapaces that you do. All I'm trying to say is that it is NOT a spetarian, nor was it ever a septarian that was weathered and became a thin layer of its own surface features that would have stayed immobile long enough to be cemented into this state. Take a look at the third photo. How do you explain the surface "shell" of a septarian folding over and into itself? It may not be a fossil, but it's definitely no septarian. Mark. Fossil hunting is easy -- they don't run away when you shoot at them! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rayminazzi Posted August 10, 2019 Share Posted August 10, 2019 I'm going to play devil's advocate here and say that it could possibly be a echinoid, the symmetry is too enticing to not throw this out there, picture from wiki to demonstrate the septarian look Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ludwigia Posted August 10, 2019 Share Posted August 10, 2019 9 hours ago, Mark Kmiecik said: There is no way a septarian could weather like that. I hate to tell you this, but in my decades of experience, I have also seen septarians that have weathered in exactly this way. It might help your case if you wouldn't make such absolute statements, but in my opinion this object is still a weathered septarian. Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger http://www.steinkern.de/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scylla Posted August 10, 2019 Share Posted August 10, 2019 As I understand it, septarians form from drying and shrinkage of mud balls. Now imagine the cracks that would form from that, the surface cracks are thinner and get progressively thicker towards the center with the largest voids near the geometric center of the original mud ball volume. These cracks get filled with a substance that can permeate the stone like Calcite or silicate rich water and this fills in the voids or forms crystals in the voids. Surface of this object has the widest cracks. The only infill seems to be sand. Looks like a stone partially fractured by expansion from inside, not contraction. Expansion can come from heat as in meteorites, salt crystallizing like on a beach, or other processes like oxidation of minerals (like pyrite). So in my best Crocodile Dundee voice: "That's not a septarian, that's a septarian!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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