Color / Pigment In A Fossil

[crash714]

Hi Everyone,

Found this piece earlier in the week and noticed that there is some red showing in it. Is this a pretty common occurrence for a fossil to show?

Thanks, Eric

Edited November 11, 2010 by crash714

[bear-dog]

The coloration has to do with the minerals the fossil absorbed for the most part.I did however find a fossil horse femur once with newsprint on it.For the coloration of your fossil you would have to compare it with other fossils in your area for rarity.

[Bill]

Hi Eric.

In your case I agree with mineral impregnation/stain, but original? (as in is it degraded or actual), colour can be found in fossils.

Checkout My link page 16 Theodoxus pisiformis and Nerita semilugubris for examples. 54.5 million year old gastropods.

I have some of the former but none of the latter.

Edited November 13, 2010 by Bill

[32fordboy]

I'm not sure about your fossil, but some trilobites have colored patterns on them. I thought one of my trilos was painted with this strange dot pattern until another one arrived and it was the sme way. Then another, and another...

A little research showed that in some cases color patterns can exist, but I'm not sure about actual pigments.

[palaeopix]

Here are some Eocene insect fossils (Family Cercopidae) from Princeton, British Columbia that have the original pigmentation patterns preserved on their wings.

Dan

[fossil lover 101]

Well, I have some fossils with orange in them......... but I think that's iron. Don't know what the red is, sorry!

[tracer]

to me it does not so much resemble a stain as it does traces of original shell material, which does occur sometimes if shells like that are buried just right. the shell material aragonite is kind of unstable and normally converts over time to a more stable form of the mineral. but the "color" on your fossil, when i look closely, looks like a slightly raised layer as opposed to just a stain.

[jpc]

Then there is the fossil penguin from Peru (I think) that was recently described. I don't have the info, but it made it into our local paper here. They found traces of rusty pigmentation in its feathers. A wicked cool specimen. I don't know if the traces of coloring were visible to the naked eye or only to the geochemical analysis. There was also a dinosaur from China that made the newspapers last year with similar coloration preserved, but it was orange on the tail. Again, I don't know if that one was visible as a different color or if only the big machines were able to see it.

[Auspex]

Then there is the fossil penguin from Peru (I think) that was recently described. I don't have the info, but it made it into our local paper here. They found traces of rusty pigmentation in its feathers. A wicked cool specimen. I don't know if the traces of coloring were visible to the naked eye or only to the geochemical analysis.

My link

The son of a customer of mine is publishing a paper on it.

[MB]

I cannot show you us because the sample it's not mine, but in the case of the super popular middle tethyan eocene crab Harpactoxanthopsis quadrilobata I can assure you that it was maculated, with round spots.

One sample with an exceptional preservation permits to see it.

To have an idea about this, you could see the extant crab Carpilius maculatus or Liagore rubromaculata for example.

[Shellseeker]

There might be two threads here -- Original pigmentation showing through to a fossil (If I find pink edges to Barnacles, coming from 75 feet below current surface, does that mean they are not fossils? These seem mixed with alabaster shells that once had pigmentation)..

I am equally interested in the colors that fossilization brings to a shark tooth -- Which minerals contribute to Red, orange, Blue, yellow , etc -- Is there a table somewhere? I always have an example in mind -- Which minerals contributed to this example from Peru?

If there is a good source to read, please point me to it.. Thanks

Found this on the net. This may be complicated

The image below shows two fossil Megalodon teeth from separate rivers in South Carolina. The smaller, yellowish specimen is from the Ashapoo River, while the larger, greyish one is from the Cooper River. Differences in coloration of fossil shark teeth are due to differences in the chemistry of the sediment into which they were deposited. For example, the yellowish color of the smaller specimen is probably due to a relatively high concentration of iron salts in the sediment, while the greyish-black color of the larger specimen is probably due to a relatively high concentration of chromium and mica. As a result of such variability, color is not a reliable feature by which fossil shark teeth can be identified.

Edited November 15, 2010 by Shellseeker