New to fossil forum, question?

[Old coin]

Is it concievably possibe for a Morrel mushroom, to become fossolized or petrified and still basically retain its original shape, my wife has a rock, which looks like the top of a mushroom, with approximatly 1/2 inch of the stem, where it was broken off, it is approximatly 1 and a 1/2 inches tall, approximatly 1 and a 1/2 inches wide, and 1 inch thick, it is porous around the stem piece where it attaches to the head of the mushroom, and a light to darker color, with what looks like a fine silica crystals or calcium deposits in the holes around where the stem attaches to the head its rough and nodually on the head and the stem is realitivily smooth, I would post a picture, but unable to do so, so tried to describe it as good as possible, but mainly wanted to know if this was possible, all replies would be appreciated, thank you.

 

[SoIll]

Anythings possible I guess. This shroomer would really like to see it.

 

[allen]

that would be really cool to see !

 

[fossil_femme]

Hi Old Coin,

Some folks will tell you that a mushroom can't fossilize, because it is too soft. That is not strictly true, because leaves and even jellyfish are found as fossils. However, finding a fossilized mushroom is very unlikely, to say the least.

One very pertinent question concerns the rock formation in which your fossil was found... did mushrooms even exist at the time that the rock was formed?

I've seen many forum discussions concerning fossils that appear to be mushrooms (see links below), and scientific minds are always very skeptical:


http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?showtopic=5917&hl=

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?showtopic=2690&hl=

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?showtopic=354&hl=

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?showtopic=4834&hl=

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?showtopic=6257&hl=

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?showtopic=1507&hl=


Hope some of that will be helpful...
Even if your find is not a mushroom fossil, I'm sure that it is worth keeping as a very interesting conversation piece!

 

[fossil_femme]

PS - if you do somehow manage to get a photo of your find, I would be very interested in seeing it, whether it is a mushroom fossil or just a cool-looking rock!

 

[Shortstack]

There are absolutely no good reasons that a mushroom can't be fossilized. It all depends on what covered it, how fast it was covered, how well it was sealed away from oxygen, and what chemicals were contained in the covering material.

 

[Solius Symbiosus]

There are absolutely no good reasons that a mushroom can't be fossilized. It all depends on what covered it, how fast it was covered, how well it was sealed away from oxygen, and what chemicals were contained in the covering material.

There are a lot of good reasons that mushrooms don't fossilize.

Among them:

Environment- mushrooms grow in wet moist environments with an abundance of microbes that readily decompose any organic material.

They are terrestrial

They are extremely fragile

..., ect.

A fossilized mushroom has never been found, though, some spores from them have been recovered from fossil amber.