Photograph by Marilyn Susek.
Mystery fossil -- Ms. Susek's father found this fossil in a coal mine in or near Sheffield, England. The rock itself is 7-1/2 cm long x 3 cm wide. I have sent the picture to several knowledgeable people and asked if they could identify the specimen; I received several authoritative answers, not all mutually exclusive. The response I consider most authoritative is -- um, never mind; we will save that for later. Can any reader identify the fossil?
70 Comments
Mark Edon · 8 October 2012
Looks a bit like the Virgin Mary.
MememicBottleneck · 8 October 2012
Camptophyllia
Can't be the Virgin Mary, it looks nothing like the stain on my shower door.
prongs · 8 October 2012
Is it indeed a fossil?
Maybe not.
Closer examination is required.
But what's a well-rounded river or beach pebble doing in a coal mine? Seems exotic to me (in the geological sense). May be from the transgression or regression above or below the coal measure.
And has it been sprayed with acrylic lacquer to bring out the constrasts? Or is that oil or water on it?
Daniel · 8 October 2012
Mark Edon said:
Looks a bit like the Virgin Mary.
You beat me to it.
glarson24 · 8 October 2012
Clearly this is an umbilical cord from a Unicorn.
ogremk5 · 8 October 2012
It looks like dolomite with an igneous inclusion. The shiny stuff in the middle of the arch could be granite or other crystalline material.
That's just based on looking at it.
A fossil doesn't make a whole lot of sense from a coal mine. Coal usually forms very thick strata and don't contain much in the way of non-organic rocks. Although, I'm not an expert. The Sheffield bed is partially exposed and between 290 and 350 million years old. It does overlay Permian limestone, so if the guy was at the bottom of the seam, he could be getting into Permian stuff.
If someone says for sure it's a fossil, then my best guess would be a seed pod, probably of an extinct form of ginko.
Or something of Permian Age.
ogremk5 · 8 October 2012
Whoops, I misread that. Sorry. The Sheffield coal is overLAIN by Permian rock. Still, I guess something could have fallen from the Permian into a mine shaft or something.
ogremk5 · 8 October 2012
OK, last attempt. If it really is Devonian rock under the coal seam, then that could be a horn coral (Heliophyllum).
KlausH · 8 October 2012
This is rather hard to identify from the poor photo, which is completely lacking a scale reference. A ruler (scale) would do much good, as would at least one close view.
Matt Young · 8 October 2012
... completely lacking a scale reference.
Read more carefully.
John Harshman · 8 October 2012
Flat, eroded cross-sections are difficult to identify in any case, and photos are worse. The dimly visible structure in the fossil, if it is a fossil at all, suggests a graptolite, though I don't know of any preserved that way, whatever it is. The shiny stuff in the middle looks to me like calcite. I'd be interested to know if the apparent dark stain is in some way associated withe the fossil, if it's a fossil.
KlausH · 8 October 2012
There is no scale reference in the PHOTO. Yes, vague dimensions are given in the text. Anyway, I think it looks somewhat like a rugose coral, but it is hard to tell. There used to be an expert around here who could definitively identify objects like this, no matter how bad the picture is. His name was Ed Corndog (or something) and he had a website called "man as dumb as coal" or something like it.
Paul Burnett · 8 October 2012
My two cent's worth: Looks like a trace fossil of a tunnelling critter's tunnel.
Just Bob · 8 October 2012
JUST LOOKING AT THE PICTURE, it looks like a rock that was lying for a long time under some rusting iron junk, taking on rust and maybe oil or other stains, thus making a "picture" of whatever was lying on top of it. There certainly could have been iron junk in a coal mine. As for the river cobble, it was obviously hydrologically dropped there by the Flood ;)
DavidK · 8 October 2012
Piltdown Man's stone tool?
EJH · 8 October 2012
There are things about this that make me think echinoderm -- perhaps a crinoid stem, although the given scale/dimensions make this seem too large and less likely. I agree with Klaus that a reference scale in the picture should have been included. You really need to hold this in your hands and use a hand lens on it.
Marilyn · 8 October 2012
Rock measurements above but the fossil measures 7 cm long and 1/2 cm wide it is possible it didn't come from inside the mine but I don't know for sure.
bigdakine · 9 October 2012
Looks like an invagination.
Kathryn Petrillo · 9 October 2012
The roundness of the rock, to me an artist, not a scientist, is indicative of water wear, and it could be one of those worm like sea creatures. If a hoax then it is a carving of an "R" as in Rolls Royce, by a kid, who decided to make all of us part of his prank
Kathryn Petrillo · 9 October 2012
Oh and he/she was either making a mold or dyslexic
Dave Lovell · 9 October 2012
Is the dark area staining of a smooth pebble, or a sunken area that has been protected from the abrasive polishing that the rest of the pebble has been subject to?
EJH · 9 October 2012
Okay, using 7.5 cm as the long dimension,* I have determined the following. The tube-like portion of the specimen (near the bottom of the rock in the view we are given) is roughly 1.4 - 1.5 cm across. The bulbous portion of the specimen (near the top of the rock in the view) is roughly 1.8 - 2.0 cm across.
*The specimen's given width of 3 cm is too short for the given length, assuming that dimension is correct. I used the given length to make my measurements for no reason other than I had to make a choice, and I did not want to devote any more time to this than I already have.
I am ready to hear the authoritative responses of the knowledgeable people you showed this to. These folks have actually held the specimen in their hands, which I am convinced one must do before rendering any kind of intelligent identification of this thing.
Cut the suspense and tell us already, please.
Matt Young · 9 October 2012
I am ready to hear the authoritative responses of the knowledgeable people you showed this to. These folks have actually held the specimen in their hands, which I am convinced one must do before rendering any kind of intelligent identification of this thing.
I have only circulated the photo. Ms. Susek has not found any experts to look at the actual specimen, so the photo is all we have to go by. I will write up the responses I have received when I get a chance.
John Harshman · 9 October 2012
Another interpretation from the little information available in the photo is that the rock is granite, and the "fossil" is an oddly shaped growth (replacing something else?) of some K-feldspar, perhaps microcline.
What *is* a river cobble doing in a coal mine, anyway?
ogremk5 · 10 October 2012
OH come on. You're killing me here.
John · 11 October 2012
Paul Burnett said:
My two cent's worth: Looks like a trace fossil of a tunnelling critter's tunnel.
Agreed, it could be the trace fossil of a worm burrow. First I thought it might be a worm or larva of some kind, but you'd have to see segmentation across the object - the one that is vaguely U-shaped. Or it could be what Ogremk5 said initially, namely, an igneous inclusion in dolomite that was later eroded down to this pebble which was subsequently buried within the organic debris of a Carboniferous-age forest before that debris became the coal deposit.
JimboK · 11 October 2012
I agree with EJH. Permineralized (via calcite/dolomite) crinoid column segment.
John · 11 October 2012
EJH said:
There are things about this that make me think echinoderm -- perhaps a crinoid stem, although the given scale/dimensions make this seem too large and less likely. I agree with Klaus that a reference scale in the picture should have been included. You really need to hold this in your hands and use a hand lens on it.
I'm more inclined to go with Paul's observation or John Harshman's. (BTW John Harshman, I hope you understand now why that pebble was found in the coal deposit. It was probably eroded down to that pebble, and transported by water until it wound up in the Carboniferous forest, before that forest died and its organic debris altered diagenetically into the coal deposit.)
John Harshman · 11 October 2012
I hope you understand now why that pebble was found in the coal deposit.
No, I don't. It seems very unlikely for a product of high-energy transport to find itself in a coal swamp. I can't see the paleoenvironments as compatible. And I still don't know what kind of cobble (too big for a pebble) that thing is.
It can't be a crinoid stem, by the way. They aren't that flexible, and the fossil displays none of the proper annular structure, and there is no hole in the center. I have no idea what the nature of the preservation is here, or what plane through the organism we're looking at. If it's an organism at all.
Isn't it time for Matt to give us more information?
ksplawn · 11 October 2012
It's fossilized rope, probably part of the reins from Adam's tame triceratops. I'm surprised there's any left; after The Fall, those fire-breathing dinosaurs usually burned their bridles and reins in rebellion against Man. Those are the ones that weren't allowed onto the Ark.
Matt Young · 11 October 2012
Isn’t it time for Matt to give us more information?
I do not know any more than you do, probably less. But the source I suspect is most reliable thought it is a trace fossil filled with some kind of crystal, probably calcite. Another source, an amateur collector, by contrast, thought it is an inclusion in an igneous rock, sort of similar to a geoid. With that kind of unanimity, I thought I would run the pic up to PT and see what other experts thought, without prejudicing anyone.
It would obviously be best if Ms. Susek could find an expert to examine the specimen. but so far she has been unsuccessful.
All I know.
prongs · 11 October 2012
7.5cm for the longest dimension is about 3 inches. That's why I call it a pebble rather than a cobble.
It is obviously well-rounded, likely from stream action or beach wave action. Such pebbles might be found just above or just below a coal bed but would certainly be exotic within a coal bed.
If it is calcareous, the inward pointing 'teeth' may be calcite crystals with darker tips. The white inner filling could be purer calcite. The structure appears to be broken and displaced and then surrounded by matrix.
If it is igneous, the inward pointing 'teeth' maybe be quartz crystals with darker tips. The white inner filling could be purer quartz. As above, the structure appears to be broken and displaced and then surrounded by matrix.
If it is indeed a fossil then the matrix must be calcareous or arenaceous or argillaceous. The inward pointing 'teeth' must be some structure of the fossil but probably not real teeth. It looks broken, perhaps folded.
It appears that the area of interest has been sprayed with something like acrylic lacquer to enhance contrast.
Although I fancy myself a keen amateur fossil and mineral collector I can't positively identify it from just this photo. If I had to guess I'd say it's a calcareous pseudo-fossil, possibly a broken cross-section of a calcite 'geode' in-filled with calcite, but my confidence is not high.
That's my two cents.
ogremk5 · 11 October 2012
Yeah, that's both of my initial guesses, but unless I see it (and maybe runs some tests), it's too hard to say.
David vun Kannon · 11 October 2012
Send the picture to Dr. Dr. William A Dembski. If it really is a fossil, rather than a mineral formation, his Explanatory Filter will definitely be able to distinguish it as such.
https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad · 11 October 2012
David vun Kannon said:
Send the picture to Dr. Dr. William A Dembski. If it really is a fossil, rather than a mineral formation, his Explanatory Filter will definitely be able to distinguish it as such.
Yet it can't distinguish between life and human-made artifacts.
That's why it's so special.
Glen Davidson
Golkarian · 11 October 2012
Could it be a Polyptychoceras?
Paul Burnett · 12 October 2012
Golkarian said:
Could it be a Polyptychoceras?
As at http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~ug7s-ktu/am_pol.jpg - maybe - but not if it's igneous rock.
Ron Okimoto · 12 October 2012
It is obviously some string that they used to tie up the baby dinosaurs on the ark.
John · 12 October 2012
John Harshman said:
I hope you understand now why that pebble was found in the coal deposit.
No, I don't. It seems very unlikely for a product of high-energy transport to find itself in a coal swamp. I can't see the paleoenvironments as compatible. And I still don't know what kind of cobble (too big for a pebble) that thing is.
It can't be a crinoid stem, by the way. They aren't that flexible, and the fossil displays none of the proper annular structure, and there is no hole in the center. I have no idea what the nature of the preservation is here, or what plane through the organism we're looking at. If it's an organism at all.
Isn't it time for Matt to give us more information?
John, my explanation is perfectly reasonable if you assume that some fast flowing stream capable of transporting the pebble flowed into a coal swamp.
John · 12 October 2012
John Harshman said:
I hope you understand now why that pebble was found in the coal deposit.
No, I don't. It seems very unlikely for a product of high-energy transport to find itself in a coal swamp. I can't see the paleoenvironments as compatible. And I still don't know what kind of cobble (too big for a pebble) that thing is.
It can't be a crinoid stem, by the way. They aren't that flexible, and the fossil displays none of the proper annular structure, and there is no hole in the center. I have no idea what the nature of the preservation is here, or what plane through the organism we're looking at. If it's an organism at all.
Isn't it time for Matt to give us more information?
Another possibility is that the pebble was transported to the coastal shoreline in which a river or some other stream emptied into and depositing it, and then, over time, that shoreline became a coal swamp in which the pebble may have been unearthed by the burrowing activities of organisms and then, eventually, preserved within the coal deposit itself.
KlausH · 12 October 2012
Is the rock "ironstone" by any chance? I have seen very similar photos of fossils from the carboniferous period.
Henry J · 12 October 2012
Could it have come from the town of Bedrock?
Henry J · 12 October 2012
Could it have come from the town of Bedrock?
H.H. · 12 October 2012
Noah's shoelace.
https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad · 12 October 2012
Geez, you Darwinists can't see anything that you're not allowed to see, can you?
It is, of course, one of the tools that the Designer used to manufacture life. Inscrutable, just like the Designer. Even like God, but a science of god-like beings is in no way like theology. Not a bit.
It's one of Noah's umbilical clamps he used on all those baby dinosaurs. How else do you think he carried all those gigantic species on his Really Big Boat?
Now, can we all just stop this alternate natural theory stuff, and get back to our Bible Studies? The joke's over. Biblical Geology - there is none other.
JimboK · 12 October 2012
It's the fossilized Holy Pin from the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.
"And the Lord spake, saying, 'First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then, shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shalt be three. Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out! Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thou foe, who being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.'"
Python 1:33
David Sorensen · 14 October 2012
This will help some of you: http://youtu.be/rNXLT8h_fIo
Mike Elzinga · 14 October 2012
David Sorensen said:
This will help some of you: http://youtu.be/rNXLT8h_fIo
If those are Sorensen’s pictures, one can at least credit him for being a fairly decent photographer.
However, as a philosopher or as a student of the universe, he leaves much to be desired. He apparently doesn’t understand that most people who have made a career of being scientists did so because of the beauty and mystery they see in the universe.
The fact that all evidence in science points to evolution and the origins of life by natural means is far more beautiful than all the sectarian wars that have occurred over many centuries and have converged to nothing.
Sectarian religion is extremely ugly and depressing compared with the beauty and exhilaration one experiences by realizing that nature doesn’t need sectarian deities or the self-proclaimed spokesmen for deities. Nature is beauty all by itself; with no pompous Grand Inquisitors to sully it by forcing us to see or believe what they would impose upon us by threat of death.
JimboK · 14 October 2012
David Sorensen said:
This will help some of you: http://youtu.be/rNXLT8h_fIo
This video is nothing more than one person (mis)stating scientific principles, then erroneously declaring "I don't believe it, therefore it didn't happen!". Ah, the Argument from Incredulity, it's a fave of creationists...
Wikipedia
By the way, organic evolution and a "Creator" are not mutually exclusive.
David Sorensen said:
This will help some of you: http://youtu.be/rNXLT8h_fIo
The first thing that struck me was that he repeatedly tells us that any design that we know about cannot approach the complexity of nature. "Life is something completely different", he tells us. Nothing that the cleverest of humans can think of designing is anything like living things. We are never going to be capable of designing living things. I realize that no analogy is perfect, but it is self-defeating to emphasize how unlike designed things nature is, and therefore nature is is designed?
And second, I noticed how the photography avoided scenes of death and suffering in nature. After all, what are things like eyes and wings doing? They're enabling predators to find their prey, or enabling prey to escape from their predators. Is the predator-prey relationship part of the design of nature? If so, why not show it?
https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad · 15 October 2012
TomS said:
David Sorensen said:
This will help some of you: http://youtu.be/rNXLT8h_fIo
The first thing that struck me was that he repeatedly tells us that any design that we know about cannot approach the complexity of nature. "Life is something completely different", he tells us. Nothing that the cleverest of humans can think of designing is anything like living things. We are never going to be capable of designing living things. I realize that no analogy is perfect, but it is self-defeating to emphasize how unlike designed things nature is, and therefore nature is is designed?
And second, I noticed how the photography avoided scenes of death and suffering in nature. After all, what are things like eyes and wings doing? They're enabling predators to find their prey, or enabling prey to escape from their predators. Is the predator-prey relationship part of the design of nature? If so, why not show it?
This dovetails with what occurred to me recently, about how very much closer to what humans actually design crystals mined from the ground are than anything that we ever find in life is. You get a nice cubic crystal of pyrite, gold, or fluorite, and one often couldn't tell if someone formed it or if it just crystallized like that--without using microscopes and compositional analysis, that is.
Life, well, we know that no human made it, and there seems no reason to think a humanoid alien would have either (except perhaps as some grand experiment).
To the ancients, the crystals were often the more marvelous of the two, because they really weren't made by any modern humans at least (or why are they in the ground?), but what did make such (sometimes) Platonic forms in the earth? Fossils, too, though, which perhaps were due to Forms, as perhaps were the crystals. Or God reveled in making wondrous artifacts in the earth? Life was rather obvious, by contrast, at least with respect to proximal cause--reproduction.
Of course the guy in the video is astonished by something so unlike design--it just fits so well with what he heard about God. Most creationists really aren't very hung up on trying to pretend that life is like human creations (usually by some hideously reductionist claim--DNA code is like language or akin nonsense) as IDiots with their agenda are, and don't mind at all thinking that they just "know" that life is what "God" would make, never mind the evidence-free leaps necessary to suppose such a thing.
The only good natural analogies (as products, not causes) with human creations, though, remain the crystals, and most creationists will admit that those (and fossils) have more mundane explanations than Platonic Ideals and Forms or magical beings sticking beautifully-formed minerals into the earth. Looking at life and saying "magic musta dunnit" is often ok for religion, really pathetic for science.
What's at least as amazing about life as its astonishing complexity and beauty is how extremely derivative it is, and in the ways that mirror present-day patterns of DNA exchanges. Nested hierarchies for lineages with virtually exclusive vertical transmission of DNA information, and a certain amount of nested hierarchies plus a whole lot of "plagiarism" in bacteria and archea. So consistent with evolution that I don't think we need the magic of Ovid's Metamorphoses to explain it, even though the ancients would be excused for seeing magic both in homologies and in accidental similarities as well.
Babbling about the marvels of nature is all very good in its way, but it doesn't do a thing to explain, or to guide research into how difference arose from the similar. Likewise, I love the "magic" of crystals, yet I don't see how I should believe that they "give me energy" (there's whole mess of New Age junk about crystals--sometimes even peddled by mineral dealers who almost certainly know better) or whatever nonsense someone imagined, nor that magic elves placed them in the ground.
Glen Davidson
Paul Burnett · 15 October 2012
TomS said: Is the predator-prey relationship part of the design of nature?
Only after The Fall Of Man - prior to Adam and Eve eating the apple, there were no predators or prey - sabertooths and tyrannosauruses and such used their large sharp teeth to open coconuts and cantaloupes for food. You gotta keep up with this stuff. [/snark]
https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad · 15 October 2012
Paul Burnett said:
TomS said: Is the predator-prey relationship part of the design of nature?
Only after The Fall Of Man - prior to Adam and Eve eating the apple, there were no predators or prey - sabertooths and tyrannosauruses and such used their large sharp teeth to open coconuts and cantaloupes for food. You gotta keep up with this stuff. [/snark]
Well of course. And P. falciparum ate apples, and only after they were ripe, not like Fallen Worms ruining them as they grow.
Although it's not clear in Behe's scheme when God decided to metamorphose P. falciparum to kill off hordes of babies. Clearly a miracle that should make you bow down to Behe's God, even so.
Glen Davidson
https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad · 15 October 2012
David Sorensen said:
This will help some of you: http://youtu.be/rNXLT8h_fIo
Yeah David, it's just a coincidence that our hands have the bones of early amphibian feet--and of lobe-finned fishes.
Honesty is important...
Glen Davidson
TomS · 15 October 2012
https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad said:
Yeah David, it's just a coincidence that our hands have the bones of early amphibian feet--and of lobe-finned fishes.
Honesty is important...
Glen Davidson
Which reminds me that the design advocates are telling us that there is a purposeful design in making humans most similar to chimps: The designer(s) wanted us to be like chimps; and if we want to follow the intentions of our designer(s), we ought to behave like chimps. If ID is true, then we should be telling our kids that they ought to act like monkeys.
As contrasted with what the evolutionists say: It is merely a matter of physical relationship, with no moral lessons, that we share common ancestry with chimps (as well as with the rest of life). If I discover that my great uncle was a horse thief, that does not mean that I ought to follow his example.
TomS · 17 October 2012
Concerning nature photos showing predators at work, see today's comic Cul de Sac
eric · 17 October 2012
Paul Burnett said:
TomS said: Is the predator-prey relationship part of the design of nature?
Only after The Fall Of Man - prior to Adam and Eve eating the apple, there were no predators or prey - sabertooths and tyrannosauruses and such used their large sharp teeth to open coconuts and cantaloupes for food. You gotta keep up with this stuff. [/snark]
You forgot to mention that since the evolution of novel characteristics is impossible, the ability to digest meat must have been front-loaded into all carnivores by God even though God never meant for them to do it. AND that when this capability first started getting expressed in phenotypes, that was merely a type of degeneration, not the acquisition of a novel trait.
It all holds together so well, doesn't it?
Henry J · 17 October 2012
But remember that digesting plants successfully takes equipment that meat digestion doesn't require! :D
https://me.yahoo.com/a/57vt.Vh1yeasb_9YKQq4GyYNFhAbTpY-#b1375 · 17 October 2012
David Sorensen said:
This will help some of you: http://youtu.be/rNXLT8h_fIo
I stumbled upon your breathtaking inanity here:
http://davidsorensen.zenfolio.com/blog
You're a decent photographer and some of your photographs resemble some taken by Frans Lanting, and Art Wolfe, among others. However, Frans Lanting recognizes that everything he photographs is the product of geological and biological evolution and has devoted part of his professional career providing visually arresting images which demonstrate both. But you are incorrect to assume that "design in nature" results in perfection, since there are too many instances where design has resulted in organismal features as imperfect sa the Panda's Thumb. Moreover, there are many notable Christian scientists who accept the overwhelming scientific evidence for biological evolution and recognize that contemporary evolutionary theory - which includes the Darwin/Wallace Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection - represents our best current scientific explanation of it.
John Kwok
TomS · 18 October 2012
https://me.yahoo.com/a/57vt.Vh1yeasb_9YKQq4GyYNFhAbTpY-#b1375 said:
contemporary evolutionary theory - which includes the Darwin/Wallace Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection - represents our best current scientific explanation of it.
I suggest that the only known explanations for many of the complexities of life involve common descent with modification. (Scientific or otherwise; good or not so good.)
The best scientific explanations often involve natural selection, but there are other possible factors, some doing better than others, such as the neutral theory, or symbiosis, ...
To invoke some agents (like "intelligent designers") which are able and willing to do anything at all, even if that is true that they did it, does not even attempt to explain why they did this rather than something else.
John · 18 October 2012
TomS said:
https://me.yahoo.com/a/57vt.Vh1yeasb_9YKQq4GyYNFhAbTpY-#b1375 said:
contemporary evolutionary theory - which includes the Darwin/Wallace Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection - represents our best current scientific explanation of it.
I suggest that the only known explanations for many of the complexities of life involve common descent with modification. (Scientific or otherwise; good or not so good.)
The best scientific explanations often involve natural selection, but there are other possible factors, some doing better than others, such as the neutral theory, or symbiosis, ...
To invoke some agents (like "intelligent designers") which are able and willing to do anything at all, even if that is true that they did it, does not even attempt to explain why they did this rather than something else.
No disagreement with you there, TomS. But Sorensen seems like, so many IDiots, hung up on the "design" aspect of Nature, not realizing that the history of life on Planet Earth is replete with so many ad hoc "solutions" like the Panda's Thumb. As for the best current scientific explanation for it, you have no disagree with me there regarding potential alternatives - just as long as they are not James A. Shapiro's ludicrous "Third Way" Neo-Lamarckian theory of evolution which he has been promoting in his book and in his Huffington Post blogs - though for now the scientific consensus is that the best possible existing scientific explanation is, as I noted yesterday, contemporary evolutionary theory with its "root" in the Darwin/Wallace Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection.
DS · 18 October 2012
I find it amusing that the Sorenson video is on the same page with a forty part series entitled "Why people laugh at creationists". Maybe they were trying to tell him something.
John · 19 October 2012
DS said:
I find it amusing that the Sorenson video is on the same page with a forty part series entitled "Why people laugh at creationists". Maybe they were trying to tell him something.
It's also amusing - but also all too typical - that Sorensen is yet another "drive by" cretinist over here at PT.
Matt Young · 21 October 2012
Martin Whyte of the Department of Geography, University of Sheffield has sent us this analysis:
I have no doubt that this an oblique view of a section of crinoid stem. …
Crinoid stems consist of a long series of disc shaped ossicles, each of which has a central perforation. During life these hard parts are enclosed within a thin layer of soft tissue which also pervades the ossicles and fills the central hole, or lumen. They can be compared to a packet of Polo mints [similar to Lifesavers] enclosed within their wrapper but are of course made of calcite rather than sugar! After the death of the animal the stem tends to fall apart into shorter segments and your specimen is such a segment cut across very obliquely so as to expose the lumen. In your specimen the boundaries between individual ossicles are not too clear but the jagged peaks on the inside of each side of the loop are each on a separate ossicle. Opposing peaks on either side of the loop belong to the same ossicle. The specimen is most probably embedded in a limestone and at the open end of the segment you can see that some sediment has penetrated up the lumen. The rest of the lumen has however remained empty and has been filled at a later date by a coarse calcite cement. The soft tissue pore spaces within the ossicles have also been filled with calcite cement which is why the ossicles have a recrystallised appearance. Each ossicle is a separate calcite crystal which is why you get these alternating cleavage directions on the broken surface.
I very much doubt that this cobble could have come from a coal mine. It is more likely that you collected it somewhere in the Derbyshire White Peak or, given its rounded and waterworn nature, at some coastal locality.
Professor Whyte has also agreed to examine the actual specimen if Ms. Susek brings it to him, so stand by.
EJH · 22 October 2012
Matt, thanks for finally confirming this. I spent more than a little time zooming in on the image and thinking about it, so I was pretty sure about it being a crinoid stem. Thank you (very much) as well for putting this thread to rest (one hopes). I am always amazed at how these discussions turn so easily down some crazy tangential rabbit's hole.
Matt Young · 12 November 2012
Many apologies -- I seem to have forgotten: Martin Whyte saw the fossil in the, um, flesh (sorry) a week or so ago and verified that it is a crinoid.
apokryltaros · 12 November 2012
Matt Young said:
Many apologies -- I seem to have forgotten: Martin Whyte saw the fossil in the, um, flesh (sorry) a week or so ago and verified that it is a crinoid.
A crinoid? So, are we looking at a cast/infill of the stem?
Marilyn · 12 November 2012
apokryltaros said:
Matt Young said:
Many apologies -- I seem to have forgotten: Martin Whyte saw the fossil in the, um, flesh (sorry) a week or so ago and verified that it is a crinoid.
A crinoid? So, are we looking at a cast/infill of the stem?
After Matt had posted the account by Dr. Whyte I then went to see him. As Dr.Whyte examined the fossil he described how mud had settled at the bottom of the stem and has fossilized but further up the stem the centre has crystallized. I thought it was a long curved specimen possibly a worm because it has a real fleshy appearance but Dr. Whyte had patience till I finally realized the structure by comparing specimens he had of fossilized Crinoid really amazing.
Matt Young said:
Martin Whyte of the Department of Geography, University of Sheffield has sent us this analysis:
I have no doubt that this an oblique view of a section of crinoid stem. …
The specimen is most probably embedded in a limestone and at the open end of the segment you can see that some sediment has penetrated up the lumen. The rest of the lumen has however remained empty and has been filled at a later date by a coarse calcite cement. The soft tissue pore spaces within the ossicles have also been filled with calcite cement which is why the ossicles have a recrystallised appearance. Each ossicle is a separate calcite crystal which is why you get these alternating cleavage directions on the broken surface.
I very much doubt that this cobble could have come from a coal mine. It is more likely that you collected it somewhere in the Derbyshire White Peak or, given its rounded and waterworn nature, at some coastal locality.
70 Comments
Mark Edon · 8 October 2012
Looks a bit like the Virgin Mary.
MememicBottleneck · 8 October 2012
Camptophyllia
Can't be the Virgin Mary, it looks nothing like the stain on my shower door.
prongs · 8 October 2012
Is it indeed a fossil?
Maybe not.
Closer examination is required.
But what's a well-rounded river or beach pebble doing in a coal mine? Seems exotic to me (in the geological sense). May be from the transgression or regression above or below the coal measure.
And has it been sprayed with acrylic lacquer to bring out the constrasts? Or is that oil or water on it?
Daniel · 8 October 2012
glarson24 · 8 October 2012
Clearly this is an umbilical cord from a Unicorn.
ogremk5 · 8 October 2012
It looks like dolomite with an igneous inclusion. The shiny stuff in the middle of the arch could be granite or other crystalline material.
That's just based on looking at it.
A fossil doesn't make a whole lot of sense from a coal mine. Coal usually forms very thick strata and don't contain much in the way of non-organic rocks. Although, I'm not an expert. The Sheffield bed is partially exposed and between 290 and 350 million years old. It does overlay Permian limestone, so if the guy was at the bottom of the seam, he could be getting into Permian stuff.
If someone says for sure it's a fossil, then my best guess would be a seed pod, probably of an extinct form of ginko.
Or something of Permian Age.
ogremk5 · 8 October 2012
Whoops, I misread that. Sorry. The Sheffield coal is overLAIN by Permian rock. Still, I guess something could have fallen from the Permian into a mine shaft or something.
ogremk5 · 8 October 2012
OK, last attempt. If it really is Devonian rock under the coal seam, then that could be a horn coral (Heliophyllum).
KlausH · 8 October 2012
This is rather hard to identify from the poor photo, which is completely lacking a scale reference. A ruler (scale) would do much good, as would at least one close view.
Matt Young · 8 October 2012
John Harshman · 8 October 2012
Flat, eroded cross-sections are difficult to identify in any case, and photos are worse. The dimly visible structure in the fossil, if it is a fossil at all, suggests a graptolite, though I don't know of any preserved that way, whatever it is. The shiny stuff in the middle looks to me like calcite. I'd be interested to know if the apparent dark stain is in some way associated withe the fossil, if it's a fossil.
KlausH · 8 October 2012
There is no scale reference in the PHOTO. Yes, vague dimensions are given in the text.
Anyway, I think it looks somewhat like a rugose coral, but it is hard to tell.
There used to be an expert around here who could definitively identify objects like this, no matter how bad the picture is.
His name was Ed Corndog (or something) and he had a website called "man as dumb as coal" or something like it.
Paul Burnett · 8 October 2012
My two cent's worth: Looks like a trace fossil of a tunnelling critter's tunnel.
Just Bob · 8 October 2012
JUST LOOKING AT THE PICTURE, it looks like a rock that was lying for a long time under some rusting iron junk, taking on rust and maybe oil or other stains, thus making a "picture" of whatever was lying on top of it. There certainly could have been iron junk in a coal mine. As for the river cobble, it was obviously hydrologically dropped there by the Flood ;)
DavidK · 8 October 2012
Piltdown Man's stone tool?
EJH · 8 October 2012
There are things about this that make me think echinoderm -- perhaps a crinoid stem, although the given scale/dimensions make this seem too large and less likely. I agree with Klaus that a reference scale in the picture should have been included. You really need to hold this in your hands and use a hand lens on it.
Marilyn · 8 October 2012
Rock measurements above but the fossil measures 7 cm long and 1/2 cm wide it is possible it didn't come from inside the mine but I don't know for sure.
bigdakine · 9 October 2012
Looks like an invagination.
Kathryn Petrillo · 9 October 2012
The roundness of the rock, to me an artist, not a scientist, is indicative of water wear, and it could be one of those worm like sea creatures. If a hoax then it is a carving of an "R" as in Rolls Royce, by a kid, who decided to make all of us part of his prank
Kathryn Petrillo · 9 October 2012
Oh and he/she was either making a mold or dyslexic
Dave Lovell · 9 October 2012
Is the dark area staining of a smooth pebble, or a sunken area that has been protected from the abrasive polishing that the rest of the pebble has been subject to?
EJH · 9 October 2012
Okay, using 7.5 cm as the long dimension,* I have determined the following. The tube-like portion of the specimen (near the bottom of the rock in the view we are given) is roughly 1.4 - 1.5 cm across. The bulbous portion of the specimen (near the top of the rock in the view) is roughly 1.8 - 2.0 cm across.
*The specimen's given width of 3 cm is too short for the given length, assuming that dimension is correct. I used the given length to make my measurements for no reason other than I had to make a choice, and I did not want to devote any more time to this than I already have.
I am ready to hear the authoritative responses of the knowledgeable people you showed this to. These folks have actually held the specimen in their hands, which I am convinced one must do before rendering any kind of intelligent identification of this thing.
Cut the suspense and tell us already, please.
Matt Young · 9 October 2012
John Harshman · 9 October 2012
Another interpretation from the little information available in the photo is that the rock is granite, and the "fossil" is an oddly shaped growth (replacing something else?) of some K-feldspar, perhaps microcline.
What *is* a river cobble doing in a coal mine, anyway?
ogremk5 · 10 October 2012
OH come on. You're killing me here.
John · 11 October 2012
JimboK · 11 October 2012
I agree with EJH. Permineralized (via calcite/dolomite) crinoid column segment.
John · 11 October 2012
John Harshman · 11 October 2012
ksplawn · 11 October 2012
It's fossilized rope, probably part of the reins from Adam's tame triceratops. I'm surprised there's any left; after The Fall, those fire-breathing dinosaurs usually burned their bridles and reins in rebellion against Man. Those are the ones that weren't allowed onto the Ark.
Matt Young · 11 October 2012
prongs · 11 October 2012
7.5cm for the longest dimension is about 3 inches. That's why I call it a pebble rather than a cobble.
It is obviously well-rounded, likely from stream action or beach wave action. Such pebbles might be found just above or just below a coal bed but would certainly be exotic within a coal bed.
If it is calcareous, the inward pointing 'teeth' may be calcite crystals with darker tips. The white inner filling could be purer calcite. The structure appears to be broken and displaced and then surrounded by matrix.
If it is igneous, the inward pointing 'teeth' maybe be quartz crystals with darker tips. The white inner filling could be purer quartz. As above, the structure appears to be broken and displaced and then surrounded by matrix.
If it is indeed a fossil then the matrix must be calcareous or arenaceous or argillaceous. The inward pointing 'teeth' must be some structure of the fossil but probably not real teeth. It looks broken, perhaps folded.
It appears that the area of interest has been sprayed with something like acrylic lacquer to enhance contrast.
Although I fancy myself a keen amateur fossil and mineral collector I can't positively identify it from just this photo. If I had to guess I'd say it's a calcareous pseudo-fossil, possibly a broken cross-section of a calcite 'geode' in-filled with calcite, but my confidence is not high.
That's my two cents.
ogremk5 · 11 October 2012
Yeah, that's both of my initial guesses, but unless I see it (and maybe runs some tests), it's too hard to say.
David vun Kannon · 11 October 2012
Send the picture to Dr. Dr. William A Dembski. If it really is a fossil, rather than a mineral formation, his Explanatory Filter will definitely be able to distinguish it as such.
https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad · 11 October 2012
Golkarian · 11 October 2012
Could it be a Polyptychoceras?
Paul Burnett · 12 October 2012
Ron Okimoto · 12 October 2012
It is obviously some string that they used to tie up the baby dinosaurs on the ark.
John · 12 October 2012
John · 12 October 2012
KlausH · 12 October 2012
Is the rock "ironstone" by any chance? I have seen very similar photos of fossils from the carboniferous period.
Henry J · 12 October 2012
Could it have come from the town of Bedrock?
Henry J · 12 October 2012
Could it have come from the town of Bedrock?
H.H. · 12 October 2012
Noah's shoelace.
https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad · 12 October 2012
Geez, you Darwinists can't see anything that you're not allowed to see, can you?
It is, of course, one of the tools that the Designer used to manufacture life. Inscrutable, just like the Designer. Even like God, but a science of god-like beings is in no way like theology. Not a bit.
Glen Davidson
prongs · 12 October 2012
Okay, okay, I'm tired of all the obfuscation.
I can't pretend to not know, anymore.
It's one of Noah's umbilical clamps he used on all those baby dinosaurs. How else do you think he carried all those gigantic species on his Really Big Boat?
Now, can we all just stop this alternate natural theory stuff, and get back to our Bible Studies? The joke's over. Biblical Geology - there is none other.
JimboK · 12 October 2012
It's the fossilized Holy Pin from the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.
"And the Lord spake, saying, 'First shalt thou take out the
Holy Pin. Then, shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three
shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting
shalt be three. Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two,
excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out! Once
the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou
thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thou foe, who being naughty
in my sight, shall snuff it.'"
Python 1:33
David Sorensen · 14 October 2012
This will help some of you: http://youtu.be/rNXLT8h_fIo
Mike Elzinga · 14 October 2012
JimboK · 14 October 2012
Matt Young · 14 October 2012
This will help David Sorensen.
TomS · 15 October 2012
https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad · 15 October 2012
Paul Burnett · 15 October 2012
https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad · 15 October 2012
https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad · 15 October 2012
TomS · 15 October 2012
TomS · 17 October 2012
Concerning nature photos showing predators at work, see today's comic Cul de Sac
eric · 17 October 2012
Henry J · 17 October 2012
But remember that digesting plants successfully takes equipment that meat digestion doesn't require! :D
https://me.yahoo.com/a/57vt.Vh1yeasb_9YKQq4GyYNFhAbTpY-#b1375 · 17 October 2012
TomS · 18 October 2012
John · 18 October 2012
DS · 18 October 2012
I find it amusing that the Sorenson video is on the same page with a forty part series entitled "Why people laugh at creationists". Maybe they were trying to tell him something.
John · 19 October 2012
Matt Young · 21 October 2012
EJH · 22 October 2012
Matt, thanks for finally confirming this. I spent more than a little time zooming in on the image and thinking about it, so I was pretty sure about it being a crinoid stem. Thank you (very much) as well for putting this thread to rest (one hopes). I am always amazed at how these discussions turn so easily down some crazy tangential rabbit's hole.
Matt Young · 12 November 2012
Many apologies -- I seem to have forgotten: Martin Whyte saw the fossil in the, um, flesh (sorry) a week or so ago and verified that it is a crinoid.
apokryltaros · 12 November 2012
Marilyn · 12 November 2012