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Hi @devin-kent where was this found (near what city)? Sometimes there are nodular rocks like this that are not fossils. I was going to cross reference it and see if there are reports of fossil plants found near there before. I don’t see anything specific that says it should be a rock or a fossil.

I found it in a creek bed (Cool Creek) on central Indiana. There are coral fossils in this area as well and glacial activity impacting the stones / fossils.

Indianapolis Indiana area

Hi @devin-kent , looking at Macrostrat it appears that the upper part of the Creek is Silurian which is too old for seed plants. There appears to be a neighboring Late Devonian unit near the lower portion of the creek. Our earliest seed fossils that we know of come from Late Devonian rocks. While there is a strange notch on the bottom, I don’t see anything that says it has to be a seed (ribbing or vascular strands). My advice: pictures of different angles of the inner part. Second, see if you can find more that are roughly the same shape, size and have the same notch. Also, look for evidence of other terrestrial fossils since this is a marine deposit. If you are finding terrestrial fossils, more of the same thing or even better, attached plant parts, it’s probably a fossil. If you find more that are different shapes and sizes then they are non-fossiliferous nodules. Lastly, it could be that because of the scale of the map the age could actually be Late Devonian or maybe it’s the oldest seed. The former is more probable that the later. Remember you can @ me or other users to send them a notification. Otherwise we won’t see any reply.

@mackenzie-smith thank you so much for that great response. I know the photo wasn’t great. I’ll take a closer look and see if there are any details not visible in the photo. I will also keep my eye open for other terrestrial fossils as you recommend. This app is great!

@devin-kent Thanks!

Looks like clay. It often has a hard outer shell and a soft interior. Sometimes there are more layers.

@mary-davis-2 @mackenzie-smith a follow up on this, since posting I have run across several more of these specimens, one 3x larger and another almost completely intact (outer harder layer). I assume this supports the thesis that this is a clay nodule vs a fossil. Thanks for the help!

No problem!