• 'Dad, look what I found!' How girl, 5, dug up rare 160m-year-old fossil with spade
    48 replies, posted
[img]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/09/13/article-2036505-0DD7D51B00000578-656_634x286.jpg[/img] [quote] She was armed with a spade better suited to building sandcastles than archaeological digs. But that was all five-year-old Emily Baldry needed to unearth a rare fossil thought to be more than 160million years old. Emily pulled the 9st specimen out of the ground at Cotswold Water Park in Gloucestershire with the help of her father Jon, 40. The Rieneckia odysseus fossil, which is almost 16in in diameter, is the remains of a mollusc that lived in the oceans during the Jurassic period. Emily Baldry with the 160 million-year-old Rieneckia odysseus fossil, and the space she unearthed it with Buried treasure: Jon Baldry and his daughter Emily, then five, with the mollusc she unearthed beside a lake A HISTORY OF SNAKESTONES Ammonites became extinct 65million years ago In medieval Europe, people belived them to be fossilised snakes due to their coiled appearance, and named them 'snakestones' A modern sea species called the nautilus is their closest living relative There are roughly 7,500 species of ammonites and they are the most common of all fossils, though the one found by Emily is very rare The fossilised sea creature has a spiral-patterned shell with inch-long bristles jutting from it to ward off predators – and which inspired Emily to nickname it ‘Spike’. It was encased in a block of mudstone when it was found, so Emily passed it on to geologist Neville Hollingworth for restoration. She was reunited with it on Sunday at the Gateway Information Centre near Cirencester, where Spike is on display. Emily, from Chippenham, Wiltshire, said: ‘It is so exciting to see him. I was very happy when I first saw him and now he looks very shiny.’ Her father added: ‘It is breathtaking how much work has gone into restoring Spike. After it has been displayed here we will bring it back home but it will be tricky to store because we have small children and it is very spiky.’ Emily, now six, made the discovery in March last year during her first archaeological dig. Dr Hollingworth, who spent a year restoring the fossil, said: ‘This is the first ammonite of this kind to be discovered whole in Britain. The rest have all been fragments.’ [/quote] Read more: [url]http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2036505/Emily-Baldry-5-digs-rare-160m-year-old-fossil-Cotswold-Water-Park.html#ixzz1Y7E7wb5h[/url]
"IT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM!" And the family gets no cash.
Holy crap talk about sheer luck. [editline]16th September 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=PunchedInFac;32317504]"IT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM!" And the family gets no cash.[/QUOTE] Finder's keeper. If a museum wants the thing, it'd better pay for it.
Dat Mollusc.
Jesus, it's nearly as big as she is.
That is one hell of a lucky kid.
I wonder how the kid feels about this. Pretty awesome, I'd suspect. Man, all I ever did at that age was act retarded.
that's gotta be worth a few pounds
I think SHELL be happy to know it's authentic.
Man, when I was little I used to dig up stuff cus I thought fossils were the shit, and whenever we went to the beach I'd pretend all the shells were fossils. If I had actually discovered one I think I would have died of happiness.
[QUOTE=Conspiracy;32317665]Man, when I was little I used to dig up stuff cus I thought fossils were the shit, and whenever we went to the beach I'd pretend all the shells were fossils. If I had actually discovered one I think I would have died of happiness.[/QUOTE] I used to collect insects :v:
[QUOTE=Conspiracy;32317665]Man, when I was little I used to dig up stuff cus I thought fossils were the shit, and whenever we went to the beach I'd pretend all the shells were fossils. If I had actually discovered one I think I would have died of happiness.[/QUOTE] I pretended I was a prospector and mined the shit out of different sandpits. Occasionally I found hardened, yellowish chunks of sand which I dubbed "Gold". I was so happy for finding it :D Only years later did I think back about those days and finally realize I dug up hardened chunks of cat piss-encrusted sand.
Chippenham? I don't live that far from there...
That's surprisingly intact, judging from the picture.
Goddamn, that thing is huge!
[QUOTE=just-a-boy;32317636]I think SHELL be happy to know it's authentic.[/QUOTE] lol that's so stupid it's funny
Digging up 160 million year old fossil, lifetime bragging rights.
That was clearly put there by the Lord our God to test our faith. Earth is actually 6000 years old
[QUOTE=Sir Whoopsalot;32317804]Goddamn, that thing is huge![/QUOTE] That's what she said
Damn the thing looks bigger than her!
Damn it I always wanted to do this when I was little.
[QUOTE=Noble;32318111]That was clearly put there by the Lord our God to test our faith. Earth is actually 6000 years old[/QUOTE] god put bones in the ground to confuse us
[QUOTE=PunchedInFac;32317504]"IT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM!" [b]And the family gets no cash[/b].[/QUOTE] Where I live they pay you to prevent people keeping fossils and other rare findings for themselves.
Thats a nice Ammonite.
I once dug up a mammoth bone but i though it was just a bone and threw it into a dumpster. A minute later somebody ignited the dumpster.
I went to a dig once when i was 8, and i found about 10 trilobites and a couple of ammonites they don't have much value here because triblotes and other shit in this area are fairly common
Ah, ammonites, the coolest.
[QUOTE=AntiNazi;32318694]I once dug up a mammoth bone but i though it was just a bone and threw it into a dumpster. A minute later somebody ignited the dumpster.[/QUOTE] so how the fuck do you know it was a mammoth bone now?
Jesus. The only thing memorable I did at that age was getting in detention for urinating behind the school's canteen, even though the toilets were less than 20m away.
[QUOTE=just-a-boy;32317784]I pretended I was a prospector and mined the shit out of different sandpits. Occasionally I found hardened, yellowish chunks of sand which I dubbed "Gold". I was so happy for finding it :D Only years later did I think back about those days and finally realize I dug up hardened chunks of cat piss-encrusted sand.[/QUOTE] I used to think quartz was ivory and hoarded it obsessively. Never understood why they had to kill elephants to get the stuff
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