Paleo Pics

Fossil coral from the Devonian seas of Indiana! This was a gift from my friend @sarah-sheffield. Corals make their skeletons of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) but this fossil is preserved as silica (SiO2). Replacement is a form of fossil preservation that occurs when the original skeletal chemical composition is replaced with a new chemical compound. In this case CaCO3 to SiO2! #fossil

I picked up this fossil for the two prominent Mucrospirifer(?) shells, but if you look closer, you’ll see all sorts of little shelled critters. Shown is about 4-5cm, top to bottom. #fossil

This a Mosasaurus tooth !
From fench Cretaceous. #fossil #collectionsite

Gastropod with sponge borings all over it! #fossil

Heading to Barstow this weekend with my friends for the Lights Festival so I thought I’d share one of the cooler fossils here at the Alf Museum that are found from the area! Behold the 15 million year old camel footprints found right in the deserts of Barstow, California.

Here you can see two sets of tracks made by two camels walking side by side. Measuring the tracks shows us that the camels were probably moving at a paving gait, which is where an animal moves both limbs on the same side of the body at the same time. Walking this way creates a very straight path and is super efficient energy wise when traveling long distances. No other animal except the modern camel has this kind of style of walking today!

PS. The camel skeleton in the background is Ned the Camel. Ned is a modern camel skeleton and not the camel that made these tracks. We have Ned there to show the size difference modern camels and their extinct relatives. #fossil