Monday, October 01, 2007

natural beauty

picture courtesy of this site.


I found this amazing fossil in the paper indicated above, which is a Spanish one. I tried my best to find the same information in English online but I wasn't successful at all. This is an 80 million years old fossil and it is called an ammonite ( an extinct group of marine animals) and it can be seen at the American Museum of Natural History in NY since last Wednesday.

According to the newspaper online, the fossil is 61 cm/24 in long, which is rather large for this type of shell, but the main characteristic are the incredible colors! Aren't they just amazingly beautiful?? There is only one other fossil similar to this one and it is in Canada. This type of ammonite is one of the three precious stones produced by living organisms, amber and pearls being the other two. Of more interest for scientists is the fact that these fossils allow them to locate the position of the seas many years ago... It was found in Canada, indicating the presence of a sea or ocean covering that part of North America as well as the US millions of years ago... The fossil was found in 2004 by a mining company which has now donated it to the Museum.

It is supposed to be the largest precious stone currently available in Manhattan! I find it truly fascinating to look at...


picture courtesy of this site

17 comments:

  1. Wow ! My mouth is still open ! What a beautiful shell and the colors !!! that's eine Augenweide to me ! I would like to see this in real !

    Doesn't matter that your desktop is boring, at least I know it know (hehehe) !

    You are always welcome for a pasta dish of course ! What about a good paella for me ?

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  2. You are wrong, lol ! Italian kitchen doesn't make fat if you eat it exactly as they do ! I haven't seen any real fat people there and the older once are even skinny. Of course if you eat pasta with ketchup, mayo or other fat sauces or with an hamburger or even as I have seen it in England on a Sandwich(!!!) then of course you become fat. But vegetables and olive oil and all the nice spices really don't make fat. I only have one friend there who is a little "round" but she eats a lot of cake and sweets and loves sweet wines !

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  3. That is beautiful. Had I known it was there I would have stopped when driving through on one of my trips!

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  4. Isn't that magnificent? The colours are outstanding, so rich. I could sit and look at something like that all day :)

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  5. WOW! ... WOW! ... that is gorgeous! I thought at first it must be the lighting they used on it... but no?! It really IS those beautiful colors! WOW!

    Yes, I suspect we will do a LOT of coffee and chat while the others go Trick Or Treating!

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  6. Whoa...that's amazing! Thanks for sharing.

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  7. That is awesome. Thanks for finding it and sharing it.

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  8. This is absolutely GORGEOUS, Mar! And almost unbelievable, isn't it? The colors are stunning and totally suprising! Wouldn't you love to see that "in person"...?
    But these two pictures are fantastic...Thank you for sharing this. I was completely unaware of it....!

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  9. oh wow - what an amazing piece! Now that would be super cool to see in person...

    But the photograph is so amazing..

    Yes I can't wait to plan this vacation out more!

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  10. I'm all agape, too, Mar. That is a gorgeous thing!

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  11. That is beautiful mar, I've never heard of this before. Very pretty, thanks for sharing!

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  12. Absolutely stunning - something that I would imagine is not truly appreciated through a photograph.

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  13. Truly gorgeous! Nature is once more showing us that when it comes to beauty we simply cannot produce anything that surpasses it.

    Thanks for sharing this. I would love to see this 'for real' sometime.

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  14. It's been in the NY Post, the NY Sun and a couple of Canadian newspapers/websites.

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  15. I am from the company that mines these ammonites and donated it to the AMNH in New York. They are actually 71 million years old and ammonites like this are only found in Canada. If you think of mother of pearl, they call this grandmother of pearl and the gemstone is called ammolite. If anyone would like any more information, please visit our website at www.canadafossils.com

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