Monday 20 April 2009

fossilly delights and no boring car stories

long long ago, in a galaxy far far away........ no that's not right.

long long ago in an ancient sea which covered all of Yorkshire, there lived wonderful and weird creatures.

these belemnites were strange squid like monsters whose remains look like little bullets or bits of liquorice.


often you can only find them still attached to a bigger rock, but this weekend we found lots of loose sections, include some with the illusive pointy ends.


wonderful mollusc shell fossils sometimes beautifully embellished by deposits of iron pyrites leached from the shales. Ironically it was probably the high levels of iron that killed them in such high numbers.


gorgous oyster like imprints, imagine the pearls in here........


and my favourite the ammonites


the swirling patterns never cease to delight


each one more enchanting than the last.

10 comments:

  1. wow, did you find these on your holiday - Milo would love them. I don't think I've ever seen fossils that clear - that weren't in a museum .Bad news about the car - so what did you choose in the end?

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  2. We love ammonites too - and we love the floor in our new local posh shopping centre because it has ammonites (either real or faked) in the polished stone floor. I think we're the only family that walks through there studying the floor instead of the shop windows!

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  3. Those are amazing! Definitely museum quality. K x

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  4. Those are spectacularly beautiful! What a wonderful adventure.

    Although (ahem), I would argue that wonderful and weird creatures still dwell in Yorkshire today...

    xoxoxo

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  5. Oh wow, I'm utterly awestruck and so is my hubby cooing over my shoulder! That is completely amazing and totally cool (as my nine year old would say).

    We went fossil hunting near Lyme Regis a couple of years ago and found a few weeny ammonites, but nothing on that grand scale.

    Have a lovely evening,

    Nina x

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  6. I used to love hunting for foossils when I lived in England. These are some really wonderful ones.
    x

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  7. I like the Ammonites too, they're beautiful. What an extraordinary place!
    I forgot to say in my last comment, I love your sons drawing!
    Vanessa xxx (do you mind if i knit)

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  8. This is so cool! I want to go fossil hunting, maybe once my daughter is slightly older.

    BTW your car story wasn't boring at all.

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  9. Such wonderful fossils - thanks so much for showing us all this treasure. I found a few teeny tiny belemnites on a Norfolk beach last week!

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