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| Neocomites neocomiensis, bottom, left |
ALGECIRAS (Source & photo: Europa Sur) Manuel Santos Quirós, a cabinet maker by trade, found a very precious and rare fossil as he was out walking. When he told his friend, biologist Federico Sánchez Tundidor (a teacher at the Instituto in Jimena), it turned out to be that of a squid set in Pyrite and of a quality that has never before been seen in the area. Weighing 50 grams and 42 x 32 x 18 mm in size, it comes from the Jurassic era, according to Sánchez Tundidor. His friend the cabinet maker, an admittedly enthusiastic collector of fossils, got the surprise of his collector's life when he discovered the squid among a good handful of Pyrites, near the centre iof Algeciras. The piece is perfectly shaped, with a bulge at the mouth that would have contained some ten tentacles, which never fossilise. Its density means that the inner compartments are perfectly preserved in pure ferrous pyrite, and it is perfectly identifiable as Neocomites neocomiensis. Only one in one hundred million of these animals become fossils, says Tundidor, and only one in one billion do so in pyrite, which explains its incalculable value.>>>
IF YOU FIND THIS ARTICLE INTERESTING, USEFUL OR ENTERTAINING, PLEASE CONSIDER THE WORK, EFFORT AND COST IT TAKES TO BRING IT TO YOU. WE WOULD APPRECIATE A DONATION TO CONTINUE A FREE SERVICE.
These ammonites are typical and quite usually found in the mountains of Andalucía and in the extremely complex terrain of the Campo de Gibraltar arch.
Many experts have qualified this area as the most geologically complex on the planet, which may well account for the number of French and British geologists that visit it.
This squid lived in shallow water and when it died it was buried immediately in terrain that contained organic marine matter, with a total absence of oxygen. It therefore fossilised quickly and directly in pyrite, in this case of very fine grain and very stable. Sánchez Tundidor spekas of this find as exceptional because it is quite large for its species.
The shelled squid remained for some 100 million years in the sediment of the Straits of Gibraltar, but at some point in the Myocene Era, about 15 million years ago, it surfaced somewher in the straits. Then came the Great Split (just invented that), when the straits opened up some 5.2 million years ago, forming a 2 kilometer waterfall and the greatest on Earth, our friend Neocomites was deposited further inland by the Alborán microplate, where it stayed until just the other day.
Incidentally, the Great Split also created the Rock of Gibraltar (originally called Jebel Tarif, from whence its present mis-pronounciation) and its comanion across the straits, Jebel Musa, less than 20 kilometers away.
IF YOU FIND THIS ARTICLE INTERESTING, USEFUL OR ENTERTAINING, PLEASE CONSIDER THE WORK, EFFORT AND COST IT TAKES TO BRING IT TO YOU. WE WOULD APPRECIATE A DONATION TO CONTINUE A FREE SERVICE.
These ammonites are typical and quite usually found in the mountains of Andalucía and in the extremely complex terrain of the Campo de Gibraltar arch.
Many experts have qualified this area as the most geologically complex on the planet, which may well account for the number of French and British geologists that visit it.
This squid lived in shallow water and when it died it was buried immediately in terrain that contained organic marine matter, with a total absence of oxygen. It therefore fossilised quickly and directly in pyrite, in this case of very fine grain and very stable. Sánchez Tundidor spekas of this find as exceptional because it is quite large for its species.
| Jebel Musa, Morocco |
Incidentally, the Great Split also created the Rock of Gibraltar (originally called Jebel Tarif, from whence its present mis-pronounciation) and its comanion across the straits, Jebel Musa, less than 20 kilometers away.
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