What is this?

[CDavison]

Curious what this is?

 

[DCMatt]

Metal? Stone? Wood? May we see the ends?

Please don't take photos of the object in your hand. The camera will focus better on a flat surface.

 

[Red-Coat]

If it is stone (and it looks to be so), I would think it's a fossilized belemnite guard (rostrum). The internal 'skeletal' portion of a squid-like cephalopod and the only part that commonly preserves as a fossil.

 

[bowwinkles]

I think if you looked hard enough you could erect something out of that. maybe petrified

 

[CDavison]

I thought it was a fossil but thee groove had me curious.

 

[Red-Coat]

I thought it was a fossil but thee groove had me curious.

Belemnite guards can have a dorsal groove, or a ventral groove, or both. Sometimes the grooves run the full length of the fossil and sometimes they're only visible at one or both extremities. Also, the blunt anterior end has a conical cavity (alveolus) which contained the internal organs of the animal and the guard is thinner in those areas. It often snaps off after fossilization, leaving an indent that's the residual end of the cavity and the beginning of the protoconch.

 

[Dougie Webb]

Belemnite guards can have a dorsal groove, or a ventral groove, or both. Sometimes the grooves run the full length of the fossil and sometimes they're only visible at one or both extremities...

Redcoat, you are the Font of All Knowledge. I know a few tv theme songs from the 80's and that's about it...