Fossil Finder Database 2022

Sea Urchin

Here is a beautiful Upper Cretaceous sea urchin showing the lovely detailed structure of the shell. The rounded lumps, or tubercles, are where the spines of the animal were attached to the shell. Such well-preserved specimens are not often found.

Sea urchin

Starfish in a sea urchin Here are two small Upper Cretaceous sea urchins.These small, high-domed urchins are well-detailed, with the central mouth and the anus clearly visible in the specimen on the left. The five radial sections are also very clear and reflect the common ancestry between sea urchins and starfish. These five radial sections are the…

Plesiosaur

Make your own plesiosaur Here is a string of plesiosaur vertebrae, probably found as a scattered or ‘disarticulated’ assemblage of bones. More often than not, dead animals are broken, eaten and smashed up. Perfect specimens are the exception rather than the rule – so palaeontologists have to reassemble the bones in order to understand the…

Ichthyosaur

Broken back This is a beautifully-preserved juvenile ichthyosaur, almost certainly from the Lower Jurassic around Lyme Regis. The jaw is missing, probably washed away or damaged before the specimen was found and recovered. Ichthyosaurs have a body that is flattened vertically creating an oval section. That is why they are so often preserved lying on…

Brachiopod shell

This is one of the largest brachiopods found along the coast and is very distinctive not just because of its size but also because, as the name suggests, the shell is ‘inconsistent’ or slightly asymetrical. Most brachiopod shells are symetrical from the mid-line.

Plant roots

Concrete roots Although the Triassic rocks of East Devon were deposited in a desert, there were rivers flowing through it, and on the banks of those rivers grew plants. When the water stopped flowing, the river banks were parched in the sun and any water in the sediments were drawn out. In the process, minerals…

Radioactive nodules

Radioactive rock! One of the most unusual features of the coast are these radioactive nodules from Littleham Cove. The radioactive elements almost certainly came from the Dartmoor Granite as it was eroded early in the Triassic period or possibly even in the late Permian. The radiation levels are very low, about the same as an…

Budleigh Pebbles

Budleigh Salterton is famous (for geologists and geomorphologists at least) for its pebbles and for good reason as they have an extraordinary story to tell. The pebbles are made from hard quartzite, sandstone cemented by silica, and are identical to rocks found in what we know as Britany today. Back in the Triassic, Britany was…