Trace fossil Burrow
This burrow follows the rock bedding, suggesting that an animal moved horizontally through sediment, digesting it and extracting nutrients in the process.
Fossil Finder Database 2022
Ichthyosaur
This is a strangely preserved ichthyosaur skull in which the upper jaw has broken away revealing the teeth still largely in place. The left eye socket is quite well preserved, as is the overall symmetry or shape of the skull.
Ammonite
This block of oolitic limestone also contains belemnites and pecten shells (scallops). The name oolite refers to the tiny egg-like structures that make up the rock. These are grains of sand or shell fragments that were rolled around in a warm sea gathering layer upon layer of calcium. The name oolite is derived from the…
Bivalve shell Trace Fossil Burrow
Cretaceous shipworm – with no ships to bore into! Here is a really unusual fossil – the boring made by a bivalve shell. Modern shipworms are also bivalves, not worms. Today they bore into wooden piers, docks and ships. We don’t know what the Cretaceous shipworms bored into, but it is most likely that it…
Bivalve shell Trace Fossil Burrow
A boring bivalve, is that possible? Here is a really unusual fossil – the boring made by a bivalve shell. Modern shipworms are also bivalves, not worms. Today they bore into wooden piers, docks and ships. We don’t know what the Cretaceous shipworms bored into, but it is most likely that it was a piece…
Banded flint
How flint forms Banded (or striped) flints are something of a mystery as no-one is quite sure how they form. The flint itself originated from the spines of sponges that became buried in the ooze at the bottom of the chalk sea. Later, ground water percolating through the chalk dissolved the spines and carried the…
Ammonite
The Cenomanian Limestone is the oldest chalk in East Devon and is a sandy type of chalk. It ‘s packed with fossils, particularly ammonites, but also sea shells, sea urchins, sponges and even shark’s teeth.
Ammonite
What’s a nodule? This ammonite, Asteroceras stellare, lies within a massive Stellare nodule. The rock is known as a septarian nodule, that is a hard, compact mass of sedimentary rock with angular cracks running through it. They are also called concretions. The nodule formed around the ammonite, preserving it from being crushed as more layers of sediment settled.…
Lobster
High-maintenance beauty! This amazing fossil of a lobster is over 110 million years old – yet it looks exactly like our lobsters today! Not only is it exceptionally well-preserved but it’s also very well-prepared. Removing the surrounding rock from a delicate specimen like this is a highly-skilled and time-consuming task. Crustaceans such as this are…