#fascinatingfossils

[everythingthatsreal]

@fascinatingfossils on ig

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Pyrite Ammonite | fascinatingfossils on Instagram

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fascinatingfossils

Ammonite

[good-night-space-kid]

Most of these pyritized ammonites you’re seeing here are from the Jurassic coast of England! The most famous spot is Lyme Regis, where Mary Anning lived, but they can be found all along the coast. They’re Jurassic in age and they are commonly found inside of concretions/in a lagerstatten deposit, so many get cracked out of these nodules and prepped, but some do wash up naturally as well.

Because I love ammonites and am studying for paleo, I’ve been following some of the guys who do this for 5+ years because they’re so cool. If you’re interested in seeing what people find, check out these guys over on Instagram:

yorkshire.fossils

fascinatingfossils

mikeharrisonfossils

martincurtisfossils

lymeregisfossils

In these deposits there’s also a bunch of other cool fossils such as ichtyosaurs, plesiosaurs, belemnites, crabs, etc.! Not all of its pyritized like the ammonites though, and many of the ammonites are also recrystalized calcite (equally cool imo because I love carbonates).

All this to say, pyrite is very cool and pyritization is even cooler!



pyrite propaganda: pyrite is so amazing i’m not even kidding. in my mothertongue, instead of being called fool’s gold, it’s called cat’s gold and we all love cats right?

also, fossils can become pyritised, meaning that we have literal DINOSAUR FOSSILS that are made of pyrite!!! beautiful shiny golden pyrite!!!

plus pyrite has a lot of chemically similar minerals that are awesome that it can occur with as well. i love chalcopyrite because i love copper (CuFeS2 if im not mistaken) and arsenopyrite is haha funny because its chemical composition is literally FeAsS and it has arse in the name as well (sorry).

it also forms in cubes and im p sure the other shape is a dodecahedron (sorry im not good at remembering geometry and im writing this in a pyrite-induced feverish haze so im not gonna google that rn) and we love 1. minecraft (cubes) and 2. dnd (dodecahedron)

i literally love this rock so so so much i will cry forever if it doesnt win (real)

YES TO ALL OF THIS! And thank you especially for shouting out chalcopyrite i love chalcopyrite.

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fascinatingfossils

Fossilised coral

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fascinatingfossils

Large belemnite

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fascinatingfossils

Fossilised wood