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. :)

    ReplyDelete
  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.

    ReplyDelete
  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?

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

    ReplyDelete