rik-rat corn pile

Monday, October 1, 2012

Fossil Hunting in Iowa: Coral

Left to Right: 1. small chunk of fossilized coral or sponge 2. buffalo nickel so you can guesstimate the size of each fossil 3. Part of a fossilized buffalo tooth.  The surface is very beautiful and looks like the cracked glaze of a raku fired pot. 4. Unidentified solitary coral.  I have never seen a fossil like this one.  Below is a detail of it's center. 5. a really nice chunk of coral.  I usually find tiny pieces of this particular kind but now I finally have a charcoal briquet sized piece.  I was totally pumped to find it.  I need to get better at coral identification.

A detail of the #4 Solitary Coral.  This piece (and all of them, really) have inspired me to find out more about fossils.  I have a generalized knowledge of the stuff, in that if I see something unusual I'll pick it up.  We'll be going to a Lapidary Society Meeting in a couple weeks where I hope to extract some knowledge from the experts.

A coyote skull found on a sandbar.

A pig jawbone found on a sandbar.  I assume someone slaughtered one and threw it's remains in the river as pigs are not native to the area and do not run feral (i god I hope pigs never run feral in Iowa.  They're so destructive)

5 comments:

  1. These are pretty cool. Glad you showed me these. :)

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  2. they ruin everything they touch. they dig holes, ruin grasslands, shit everywhere, breed prolifically, and ruin ecosystems. Do they have an open season on them? Because one could feed a bunch of people for a long time.

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  3. they've found that killing them just causes heavier breeding...weird...so it's a tricky business. Some states have had more success than others...why don't i scan the article and send it to you?

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  4. That sounds awesome. eww. if you kill them they grow stronger. Kind of scary stuff.

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