Saturday, July 21, 2012

Agatized gastropods from Morocco

Recently there have been fossilized gastropods replaced with Agate coming out of Morocco. Most are unlabelled or have incorrect names but all are said to be from the Eocene. Below are three different specimens that I believe are all Cerithium sp. based on a little searching and some help from my friend Gery in France.

Specimen #1 profile

View looking down the shell

View of the bottom


Specimen #2 profile

View looking down the shell

View of the bottom


Specimen #3 profile

View looking down the shell

View of the bottom


Gery has collected Cerithium sp. from the Eocene aged sediments of the Paris basin (Bartonian stage). He gave me a couple of websites that had visual catalogs of the different gastropod species that are found in that formation. The first link has a Cerithium tuberculosum (which looks to be very similar to the third specimen above) as the second fossil in the left hand column. The second link has similar shells presented although you have to search a little more as they are not in alphabetical order. It does show a Cerithium tiarella that looks very similar to the first two specimens above. Here is an image of an impressive Cerithium tiarella from Flicker.

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