Can you help?
The following enquiry has been brought in to the museum. I've had a look
at it and also taken it to the geology dept. at Plymouth Uni and we are stumped.
The separation between individual elements seems to be too large to indicate vertebrae. Also the
fact that this comes from Dartmouth Group rocks, Devonian, basically shillet or
poorly laminated slates, discourages us from thinking it could be vertebrae. The
only fishy stuff recorded from the beds is Pteraspid scales/armour/fragments -
not conducive to good preservation of vertebrae.
Other option is mineralised
sedimentary structure: worm burrow (no records of trace fossils in this rock -
though some must have been present?); infilled gouge mark (very circular in
cross section rather than semi-circular); lenticular mud clast / boudinage (very
regular, very thin)
Pyrite mineralisation is present, plus fibrous
calcite mineralisation between some of the 'vertebral'
elements.
Do you have any ideas? Or can you suggest someone
who might be able to help?
The picture can be enlarged quite a bit by pasting into
Word or similar. The 'fossil' itself has been glued to the wooden block with
Araldite!
Thanks for any time you can give to this - Helen
The views expressed in
this message are personal and should not be considered to be the official views
of Plymouth City Council.
-----Original Message-----
From:
[log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 26 October 2002
22:24
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Unknown
fossil found at Jennycliffe beach Plymouth Sound.
Dear Sir/Madam I am a amature fossil collector and recently
made a fossil discovery at Jennycliffe beach (pictured). I wondered anyone at
the museum could help me identify it? It was embedded in a slab of soft local
slate. it consists of 20ish vertibre type sections in a ferrous/calcite
material tapering to one end.