Steve Jurvetson

Some preserve stunning crystal chambers. When cut and polished, many fossils reveal beautiful quartz or calcite crystals filling the buoyancy chambers, turning them into natural works of art, like this sculpture of Schloenbacchia variosis Cretaceous Atlas Mountains, Khenifra Province, Morocco

Their suture patterns are like nature’s artwork. The internal walls (septa) dividing shell chambers create incredibly intricate, fractal-like patterns visible when fossils are polished. These "sutures" are unique to each species and help paleontologists identify and date them precisely. Placenticeras meeki Late Cretaceous, Pierre Shale South Dakota, USA This unusual-looking piece features an ammonite preserved… Read More

Ammonites used to rule the seas for 350M years. They were prolific, and adaptive, with over 10,000 different species, across sizes spanning from a millimeter to 10 feet across. But then they all disappeared with the meteorite impact that took out the dinosaurs. Ammonites are ancient relatives of octopuses and squids, marine cephalopods with tentacles,… Read More

For the ones that look metalized with crystals in the chambers: “as the organic matter decayed, it released sulfides that interacted with the iron ions dissolved in the surrounding waters. This allowed pyrite to invade the shell and fill the chambers, creating a preservation with a brassy luster.” (We Dig Ammonites, p.85) Nautilus shell on… Read More