That is quite a pile of packages going out the door today (so far). Our shipping team is doing an incredible job working through the backlog of Black Friday orders. They got over 260 packages yesterday and probably just as many will ship today.
This is a nicely preserved, 5.1" long Cockerellites (Priscacara) liops fish from the famous 18 inch layer of the Green River Formation. It was collected from Lindgren Quarry near Kemmerer, Wyoming.
50 million years ago, in the Eocene, these fish thrived in Fossil Lake, which was fed by Uinta and Rocky Mountain highlands. The anoxic conditions at the bottom of Fossil Lake slowed bacterial decomposition, prevented scavengers from disturbing corpses, and most interestingly, suffocated creatures that ventured into the oxygen-starved aquatic layer. The result is a miraculous exhibition of Eocene biota in a subtropical aquatic community within sycamore forests teeming with creatures such as freshwater stingrays, dog-sized horses, menacing alligators, early flying bats, and one of the first primates.
Gorgeous enamel and razor sharp serrations on this 6.35" long, fossil Megalodon tooth. I really like how the enamel color transitions from tan/grey near the edges to a deep blue in the center of the blade.
Just got in a big shipment of brilliant ammolite from Alberta including this amazing, 14” wide, complete ammonite. Getting it all photographed today and it will be up for sale on FossilEra.com shortly. Ammolite is the trade name for an opal-like gemstone composed of fossil ammonite shells.
A beautiful, zoned, green fluorite crystal on a matrix of druzy quartz. This particular specimen sold almost as soon as we posted it, but we have a number other pieces still available at FossilEra from the same lot.
We just got in a fresh stock of Petoskey Stones from Michigan. These stones are actually 350 million year old, fossil rugose coral found along the beaches of Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, as well as in rock quarries in the area. Like the fossilization process of other corals, Petoskey stones formed when the polyp of the coral and its openings filled with sand and silt as it petrified. Over time the soft tissue decayed and the calcium carbonate “skeleton” of the colony was replaced by silica, calcite, and other various minerals forming a fossil. The rocks containing this fossil coral were exposed and broken up into smaller pieces by glaciation. These fragments of fossil coral subsequently became rounded and polished due to the action of both glaciers and waves on the lake shores.
Xiphactinus was a huge, predatory fish that lived during the Late Cretaceous. It would have been a veracious predator, growing 15-20 feet long. When alive, the fish would have resembled a gargantuan, fanged tarpon. Fossils of this monster fish can be found in the Smoky Hills Chalk of Kansas. This is a spectacular 10" long, fossil jaw that just arrived and is now posted for sale on FossilEra. Just check out those fangs!
With Black Friday falling almost a week later on the calendar this year, we have started our big sale early. Check out all of the deals at https://www.fossilera.com
Woohoo, it’s our birthday! FossilEra turns six today.
t's hard to believe it's been six years already. We have a gift for you to celebrate. Every order placed today at FossilEra.com will include a free, limited edition, FossilEra Allosaurus vinyl decal. They look great on car windows, laptops and any other flat surface.
This is a very unique pair of bookends made from jasper replaced petrified wood, collected from Marston Ranch near Ashwood, Oregon. This petrified wood is often referred to "bog wood" as it's thought to be a bog layer in a swamp that was covered over and petrified. The jasper replacement leaves a beautiful coloration with hues of reds, yellows and blues, but unfortunately destroys the detail that would allow for the type of tree to be identified. Each bookend slightly varies in size, with one measuring 9.5" tall, 6.7" wide and 1.8" thick, while the other is 9.5" tall, 6.8" wide and 1.75" thick.
Just added for sale at FossilEra.com
This is a beautiful 1.1" fossil fern (Sphenopteris) frond section, from the Pottsville Formation, Alabama. Sphenopteris is a genus of seed fern that contains a number of extinct species of fern that reproduced from seed as opposed to sporophyte reproduction of most modern ferns.
This is a brilliantly colored, 19.4" wide slab of Araucarioxylon arizonicum petrified wood from the Chinle Formation, Arizona.
The petrified wood from the extinct conifer Araucarioxylon arizonicum which happens to be the state fossil of Arizona. The petrified wood of this tree is frequently referred to as "Rainbow wood" because of the large variety of colors some specimens exhibit. The red and yellow are produced by large particulate forms of iron oxide, the yellow being limonite and the red being hematite. The purple hue comes from extremely fine spherules of hematite distributed throughout the quartz matrix.
Araucarioxylon arizonicum is estimated to have grown more than 150 feet high and dominated the tropical forests in what is now Arizona nearly 225 million years ago.
This is an absolutely massive, cervical (neck) vertebra of an Apatosaurus collected last year from our partners private quarry near Dinosaur, Colorado. It measures 33" wide and stands 32" tall on it's custom metal display stand. It really makes you think about how gigantic that animal was if this was a vertebra it's neck.
This is an very interesting and exceptionally well prepared specimen from the Late Cretaceous phosphate deposits of Morocco. It is a disarticulate jaw of a Mosasaur (Platecarpus ptychodon) with 15 original teeth present, 2 of which are only partially erupted. Nearly all Mosasaur jaws are found with similar crushing, but instead of removing all the bones from the pieces from the rock and reassembling them, they were left in place. It's also unique in that there is no restoration or compositing on this specimen, just a few crack repairs. A huge amount on preparation time was put into this specimen to remove the rock from not just in front of, but behind the teeth bringing them out in high relief.
3.1" Annularia Fern Fossil (Pos/Neg) - Mazon Creek
This is a nicely defined fossil frond of a horse-tail like tree, Annularia preserved inside an ironstone nodule that has been split open. It comes from the famous Mazon Creek Lagerstätte. These ironstone nodules have been collected for decades from the spoil heaps of abandoned coal mines near Coal City, Illinois.
The Mazon Creek fossil beds are a conservation lagerstätte (deposit with exceptional fossil preservation), located in Illinois. This location of late Paleozoic (~307 million years ago) biota, ranks among many of the other great fossil sites around the world. The large variety of fossils collected here, vary between plants and animals, including soft bodied and insect preservation. The fossils from this site are often quite detailed and are preserved within siderite (iron carbonate) nodules.
Check out the detail on this 44 million year old fossil wasp preserved in amber. Got some more stunning Baltic amber specimens in that we have been posting to FossilEra.com this morning.
View more at: https://www.fossilera.com/fossils-for-sale/baltic-amber
This is is a nice, 3.6" long fossil dragonfly (Isophlebia?) from the Upper Jurassic Solnhofen Limestone of Germany. Complete fossil dragonflies are rare finds in this formation and there are several species present. This specimen is preserved on it's side which is a more unusual orientation to find these fossils in.