Rock or fossil?

[samanthajo]

Hello, one of my brothers brought this to me after digging it up in our garden. He believes that it's a dinosaur egg but I'm not sure. We live in the Appalachian mountains of Virginia if that helps.

 

Edited October 16, 2019 by samanthajo

[samanthajo]

[Micah]

I have no idea, it kinda looks like plaster to me. Curious what others think.

[Ludwigia]

Looks like a concretion to me. One thing for sure is that it is not a dinosaur egg.

[Fossildude19]

Welcome to the Fourm.

 

Unfortunately, ... I have to agree, this is some sort of Concretion.  They are common geological occurrences. Much more common than eggs.

 

The only mesozoic aged rocks (dinosaur age) do not outcrop anywhere near the Appalachians.

Cretaceous and Triassic aged outcrops occur in the eastern, central, and northern parts of the state.

 

 

If you have further questions about eggs, you can look through our Egg Guides. 

 

[Mark Kmiecik]

I would say concretion. Definitely not an egg. Look at the thickness of the shell. An eggshell does not vary that much in thickness. Also, if the eggshell was that thick, the embryo would need a jackhammer or explosives to crack it and get out. The dino eggs that have been found show us that the shell was quite uniform in thickness and proportionately thick for the size of the egg. At ostrich size it would be 2-3mm thick; at chicken size it would be 0.3mm thick. An egg the size of your specimen should have a shell approximately 0.8mm to 1.0mm thick. Another thing is if the egg had been flattened that much the shell would have cracked everywhere over its surface.