Fossils and Prehistoric Animals.

[MunchMyStump]

Fascinating read, thanks for posting that. I'm old, a dinosaur to my kids even! I love taking them out, doing different things (pre covid) and one day I decided to take them to a little known quarry that was like most of Yorkshire under water or breaking water for millions of years. We searched the cliff fronts for quite some time and only found partial fossils. After a couple of hours picking away I decided that we might be above the KT line and maybe we should head to the lower face.
Walking back down to level ground my eldest and clumsiest fell over a rock.. Doh!!!
Dad... Yes... Is this a fossil?
An hour of careful extraction later this is what emerged... Is it a fossil? I dunno. A concretion maybe?
It's about a football size, a little bigger maybe?

Thoughts chaps and chapesses

 

[emmaemma]

it looks like a prehistoric door stop....

 

[bluemack]

Maybe a rather large clam?

 

[Chris Calder]

The sun is estimated to be halfway through its life cycle and has around 5 billion years left.
Earth has an estimated 1.75 billion years of habitual time left that could support life.
Dinosaurs lived on Earth for around 177 million years
Human kind is around 300,000 years old.
I wonder what will take over the lease when our time comes as cannot see humans even lasting another 1000 years!

Once we become extinct, the farmland will return to forests, the forests will get bigger, the mammals will get bigger to reach the trees and it will be the time of the dinosaurs again

 

[bluemack]

Once we become extinct, the farmland will return to forests, the forests will get bigger, the mammals will get bigger to reach the trees and it will be the time of the dinosaurs again

Sooner the better.

 

[Chris Calder]

Sooner the better.

bad day

 

[Pompous git]

Our planet would be a much better place if apes were at the top of the food chain. They have a social and family life and don`t
care about street cred or fashion and don`t pollute everything they touch.

That`s enough philosophy, I am human I am here and while I`m here I intend to enjoy myself

 

[bluemack]

bad day

Not at all mate,we have a beautiful planet but it,s full of a##eholes. It deserves better than us.

 

[rudd]

Not at all mate,we have a beautiful planet but it,s full of a##eholes. It deserves better than us.

Maybe we only exist to cause entropy?

 

[Trogg]

I usually go by Jesus freak or reverend but I promise not to work my weird godly wiles on the MD’ers

Oh for the love of chr.....he's a religious nut with a sense of humour... the end is nigh!

 

[Zerkalo]

First two things I was into as a kid was dinosaurs and space. Had loads of books on them and knew all the names. Now not so much but my brother in law is well into fossils and stuff like that. He had a day on the Jurassic Coast when in Dorset and apparently it was pouring with rain, but the instructor said it's the best time to go fossil hunting as it washes away all the sediment.

 

[Simon R]

On the subject of fossils and creationism:

A local school sorry academy is one of the Emmanuel Schools Foundation group (there's about six across the north-east I think) and when it first opened back in 2003 taught creationism in science lessons. This was hotly denied by the school but a friend of mines son was a pupil and I saw the rubbish the kids were getting taught - fine to teach them fairy stories in RE but not as part of the science curriculum.

BBC NEWS | England | Tees | 'Creationism' school opens its doors

Dawkins attacks 'educational debauchery' of creationist schools

The organisation criticised for promoting creationism in state education has admitted that anti-evolutionary theories will be taught in its new schools.

www.theguardian.com

The outcry amongst parents was huge - not so much as regards what their children were being taught but more about what they weren't being taught - there would obviously be gaps in their knowledge that could hamper their studies at A level and beyond.
Fossils for instance were not evidence of long dead extinct animals but they'd just been put there like that.

Some parents pulled their children out of the school and transferred them to other schools, whilst others (my friend included) bought text books for their children. It was noticeable that before the first OFSTED inspection of the school three years later the curriculum had changed and the kids were getting taught 'proper' science again. Although that didn't stop the school banning Harry Potter books from the school library after "concerns over the series containing connotations to the occult and witchcraft".

The school reckons the fact it's always oversubscribed is evidence of its success - it isn't - they demolished three other schools prior to transferring the pupils to the new academy and there's no other secondary school within three or four miles so unless the kids want to travel half-way across the town twice a day they all attempt to get in at their local school.

Simon

 

[Simon R]

An hour of careful extraction later this is what emerged... Is it a fossil? I dunno. A concretion maybe?
It's about a football size, a little bigger maybe?

Thoughts chaps and chapesses

A fossilised cow-pat perhaps?
That's what it resembles anyway

Simon

 

[mickthechippy]

where I live on the coast at folkestone, we have an exposed bed of soft rocks that when the sea hits it, it washes out literally hundreds of the more common trilobite-ammonite type fossils and occasionally a far more interesting specimen

tis good on a summers afternoon when the tides are out, to take the the grandkids on a search for them,

also just to the north where the escarpment of the Downs ends theres a couple of fields and stream cut valleys that if you keep your eye to the ground while walking a dawg, you can quite often pick up stone tools after the fields have been ploughed over

not withstanding other finds from later on in history, one of which happened when I was about 15 or 16

we had been night fishing over to reculver on the north kent coast, and during the night over the high tide, I had snagged up and lost a couple of rigs on the rougher ground, after packing up it was easy as the tide went out to go and find yours and others lost rigs amongst the rocks, bits and weights were expensive then, when you didnt have much money

I was searching the pools when I noticed a glint, and on leaning down found a gold ring, a big thick band it was far too big to fit my finger near too big for my thumb even, chuffed as hell, I had found treasure !

kept it for a while, but then was short of cash, (I was only a poor 1st year apprentice then) so I took it to our local antique gold dealer and had it wieghed in for a £10 note, that was near a weeks wages then

it wasnt until later when my interest in dark age kent began to get into my brain, that I realised where I had found that ring and the rocks I had found it in, were the remains of the the Roman saxon shore fort of Regulbium, which had been washed in and eroded into the sea

the ring had had no markings on it to show it was gold, but the dealer tested it to show it was near pure, its always since then been heavy on my heart that I probably had weighed in for scrap gold,a real treasure that was more than likely a roman or celtic band and would of been of great interest to the local historians

 

[matt]

Fascinating read, thanks for posting that. I'm old, a dinosaur to my kids even! I love taking them out, doing different things (pre covid) and one day I decided to take them to a little known quarry that was like most of Yorkshire under water or breaking water for millions of years. We searched the cliff fronts for quite some time and only found partial fossils. After a couple of hours picking away I decided that we might be above the KT line and maybe we should head to the lower face.
Walking back down to level ground my eldest and clumsiest fell over a rock.. Doh!!!
Dad... Yes... Is this a fossil?
An hour of careful extraction later this is what emerged... Is it a fossil? I dunno. A concretion maybe?
It's about a football size, a little bigger maybe?

Thoughts chaps and chapesses

Not absolutely sure but it could be a Stromatolite (fossilised algal mat)?