Nov 16, 2018
fms.fossils
Here was a lucky little find from today's fossil hunt on Charmouth beach. This is a pyrite ammonite of the species Echioceras raricostatum. They are preserved in very soft shale, as you can see, which means that they come out in one piece very easily. Usually, the sea pulls them out of the rocks and dumps them on the beach. This can easily damage or destroy them. This one has a thin calcite shell on top of the pyrite which would have been removed by the sea almost instantly if it had got to it before I did. This fossil is around 196 million years old.
