Fossils

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A couple of days ago I was walking through our top field and my eye was caught by a small stone the size of a table tennis ball. The stone was lying on the surface in the entrance to a rabbit burrow. I picked the stone up and cleaned it to reveal this little work of art!

I realised that on the limestone bedrock we have here we often get fossils but which one was this. A photo of this was sent to my personal Geological adviser at SMU in Dallas Texas! Thanks to Steve and his colleagues I am confidently saying it is the tabulate coral Syringopora. Amazing to think that 300 million years ago our land was at the bottom of a sea and that this little miracle is brought to the surface by the activity of a rabbit! A close inspection of the limestone walls of our old farmhouse reveals another fossil. I thought the house was old (circa 1620) but the walls are made of stone that is a good deal older.
I think this fossils in the wall of the house are Siphonodendron martini  a branching colonial coral.
And finally all the dry stone walls hereabouts are full of fossils.
I think this one might be another syringopora from a different angle.(In a stone wall)








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