Creatures or plant i:d please

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Tenderfoot
Nov 16, 2020
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Found this rock on a country road it felt dense so i took it home and later examined it and found it covered in pinhead sized creatures or plant and broke it open to find lots more inside, creatures on the inside are all crystallised the ones on the outside are white inside, they look round but with elyptical side on view, what you mainly see is i believe a sliced view of the creatures and there is also skin patterns of other creatures or plant as you can see from the pics the rock is 3 1/2inch by 2in by 1in, and weighs 222grms but feels quite dense,there is also like a slight varnish coating in patches that you can see the Creatures inside, bit like how amber works, enough of the babble any ideas guys IMG_20201116_144511.jpg IMG_20201116_145724.jpg IMG_20201116_150022.jpg IMG_20201113_165453.jpg IMG_20201113_164855.jpg IMG_20201109_155043.jpg IMG_20201105_221209.jpg IMG_20201105_215839.jpg IMG_20201105_195616.jpg IMG_20201104_215053.jpg IMG_20201113_133828.jpg IMG_20201105_194650.jpg
 

Red-Coat

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Dec 23, 2019
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Welcome to Tnet

For the most part, those look to me like Fusulinids, which represent an extinct order within the Foraminifera from the Lower Pennsylvanian to Upper Permian. They were exclusively marine organisms of a cellular nature but with a hard exoskeleton composed of calcite, for which the most common form has a similar appearance to small grains of rice, although other shapes exist.

Fusulinids.jpg

If you Google for 'fusulinid fossils' you'll see the diversity of possible shapes and sizes. There's some helpful information here:

http://www.kgs.ku.edu/Publications/ancient/f06_fusulin.html
 

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Tenderfoot
Nov 16, 2020
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Interesting but i don't believe it's fusulinids however it did lead me to a few other sites of interest, what you showed me look like wheat grains and have layered coil shells, the pics of the Creatures I've sent in are all like smarties micro size, they're black grey and burgundy in colour with prob white calcite insides as you stated, but i think maybe some early amphibians possibly frogs or other as early amphibians (i read) had scales and not smooth skin, you can see a pic of scales in the rock and there is many more impressions of skin in on and around the rock but cannot get good pics as my camera is pretty crap, so i think it could be like a tadpole or polliwogs as they are also known possibly, there is also a couple of the pics that have rust lumps they look like rust(second pic down on right side and third pic down on left side) but could be heamatite, remember the only way i can see all of this is through a microscope, thanks for your comments.
 

Red-Coat

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Dec 23, 2019
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Fusulinids vary in size from microscopic all the way up to a couple of inches (and occasionally beyond). They also have a range of shapes including planispirally coiled, and evolute; lenticular discs (ie ā€˜smartieā€™-shaped); globular, both regular and irregular; and elongated rice-shaped ā€˜torpedoesā€™, with or without pointed ends. I only showed one picture of the latter as the most common form. They also sometimes have scale-like surface patterns and frequently fossilise together with mixed marine detritus from other organisms which can include scale-like patterns. Thereā€™s a patch of fenestrate bryozoan at 4 oā€™clock in the pic below for example.

Fusulinids2.jpg

The colour of your fossils is largely irrelevant to their identification since a fossil can be pretty much any colour depending on how it has mineralized. Soft-body fossils (eg those of a tadpole-like nature or small amphibians donā€™t fossilise in three-dimensional form in the manner that you are showing and in any case would be an extremely rare find in such concentrated clusters.
 

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Tenderfoot
Nov 16, 2020
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Hello red coat thanks for the info, I'm not saying that you could be wrong as i read that there are lots of different forms of these creatures i just thought that there must be pics of the Creatures more similar to what i have.I have posted 3 more pics but as I've said my camera is naff, one pic has two dark marks on it and the fossils look like tiny eel looking creatures with faintscaley skin pattern on them and the other two pics look like a frog to me a very tiny one like we still see today but no scale pattern on the supposed frog but i could be wrong. Once again apologies for the photos and thanks fort your input
 

Red-Coat

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Nothing more can be said from those pictures I'm afraid... except that I definitely don't see what you see and to repeat that creatures like frogs don't fossilise in 3D form (apart from a few specimens trapped in amber and a very rare fossil cast of frog soft tissue found in France in 1872... perhaps unique).
 

ArfieBoy

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I think it is a alien seed pod! Don't inhale too close to it... you might get the seeds in you lungs, then have a thoracic eruption when you least expect it! :laughing7: Seriously, thank you Red-Coat for your input and knowledge, again!
 

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