FOSSIL FIND!
Mesmer island is split into two parts by a lava filled canyon. A race of intelligent dinosaurs inhabit the largest section.
There are two main tribes of these dinosaurs. The simple, nature loving Volcyanosaurs, who have built villages inside large volcanic caverns aglow with amazing crystals and wondrous, bioluminescent life forms. And then there are the haughty Silvasuars, who primarily live in cities and villages nestled near the forests and mountain tops of Mesmer Island.
By choosing the Fossil Find sample bag you can help the Wizard of DECOPOLIS and his team of explorers find out more about this incredible island and its Dinosaur inhabitants.
Let us know what 4 of the items are inside your bag, and you can receive a FREE "Mesmer Island, Expedition Member" pin!
What YOU might find!
Real Dinosaur Bone Fragments -- Crinoids -- Petrified Wood -- Tiny Trilobites -- Assorted Fossils -- Tektite -- Assorted Rocks & Minerals -- Volcanic Rocks
AMMONITES!
Ammonites...
Small, Opalized Ammonites like you might find in your Mesmer Island Sample bag!
Ammonites could get quite large!
Dinosaur Bone Fragments
In your bag, you might find a dinosaur bone fragment. It can be tricky to determine whether or not you have one but we have some clues below.
One clue is if the rock feels a bit lighter than a regular rock. Sometimes the Dinosaur Bone will still have pores (tiny holes) that have not filled in with minerals, which is what makes it lighter. If you were to break a chicken bone for instance, you would notice the inside has holes like this.
Notice the white ovals and slightly rough texture. The white ovals are where minerals have started to crystalize in the pores of the dinosaur bone.
Here you can just make out some rough, up and down lines. This shows the direction of the pores where the blood vessels and nerves inside the porous bone were.
Here is a piece of bone that has been cut and polished so you can better make out the interior structure of pores that have fossilized, filling in with minerals over time.
Tektite
Millions of years ago when large METEORS hit the earth, the impacts were so great they melted the ground they hit, throwing huge amounts of molten rock far up into the atmosphere. The molten droplets began to harden as they fell back to the earth forming TEKTITES!
FUN FACTS...
METEOROID = A "space rock" piece of comet or asteroid floating through space.
When a METEOROID hits the atmosphere of a planet or moon, like the Earth, it is called a METEOR.
When the METEOR hits the planet or moon it is called a METEORITE.
Tektites like you might find in your sample bag!
Tektites can take different shapes depending on how large the piece of molten rock is and how far it flew through the atmosphere before landing.
Trilobites!
Trilobites..
These tiny Trilobites, about 1 cm across, are like the ones you might find in your sample bag! Most of these little guys are rolled up just like pill bugs (Roly-Polies) If you are very lucky and know just where to look, Trilobites of about this size can be found near Tulsa's Keystone Lake.
Trilobites come in many shapes and sizes, including GIANT ones like these!
Petrified Wood
How does a tree petrify?
When a tree dies, falls over and is buried in a river channel or floodplain, it can be so completely cut off from exposure to any air and oxygen, that it will not rot. Then silica, usually from volcanic ash, dissolves in the water and enters the waterlogged tree, interacting with it and replacing the wood so that you end up with a silica replica of the tree. This can happen "fairly quickly", geologically speaking, within only a few Tens of Thousands of years.
Then the log goes through an even longer process of mineralization, this time turning into solid quartz which can take Tens of Millions of years!
For instance, the logs in the Petrified Forest, along Route 66 in Arizona, are from the Triassic period, over 200 million years ago, during the time when the first Dinosaurs appeared!
Polished and tumbled pieces of Petrified Wood like you might find in your sample bag!
Some sample bags may contain rough chunks of petrified wood that may exhibit some rough bark exterior, or even perhaps the interior growth ring structure.
Here is a beautiful piece of Petrified Wood that has been cut and polished. You can make out the rough bark texture on the outside and even some of the growth rings on the inside.
MORE OCEAN FOSSILS
Crinoids, Horn Coral, Sharks Teeth
Echinoderms, Brachiopods & Pelecypods
Below: How to tell the difference.
At first glance Brachiopods and Pelecypods may look similar, but they actually belong to different Phyla. Brachiopods were once the most dominant species, hence why we find them more easily as fossils, but after a great extinction event at the end of the Paleozoic, the Pelecypods or "Mollusks" that we are more familiar with today, became far more abundant. One other difference is that Brachiopods only live in Marine/Ocean environments, whereas Pelecypods can live in both Marine/Ocean environments and Fresh Water ones.
Crinoids were very common in the ancient oceans and came in many sizes and varieties. They have been around for a long time, 300 million years before the dinosaurs! Though they may look like plants, they are actually animals! Some could actually "walk" on the sea floor using their "Cirri and Holdfasts" (see drawing below). Some, instead of having the root looking Holdfasts , had balloon like structures that enabled them to float upside down. They use their arms to grab pankton and tiny bits of food that drift by in the water.
Above is a drawing showing some of the different parts of a Crinoid.
Some sample bags may contain crinoid stem pieces like these!
Many types of crinoids went extinct but you can still find modern relatives alive today! And today they are called Sea Lillies or Sea Palms. A modern, "stalkless" variety called Feather Stars, can swim, and live in reef enviromnents.
