Staring at Stones
The flint gravel used for Cambridge paths and borders is ‘full’ of fossils – if you look hard and long enough!
This photo contains nine fossils - three sponges, three belemnites and three Gryphea bivalves - can you spot them?
The sponges lived on the Chalk seabed and their remains were surrounded by the silica, which hardened into flint.
The belemnites and Grypheas are older, early Cretaceous or possibly Jurassic age fossils whose durability allowed them to survive when the rock that contained them was eroded away.
The belemnites were part of the body of extinct squid-like animals.
The Grypheas lived as oyster-like bivalves on the seafloor.
Douglas Palmer
Sedgwick Museum
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Saturday: 10am - 4pm
Sunday: Closed
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Studying Earth Sciences at Cambridge University
Discover more about studying Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge in this video featuring Museum Curator of Mineralogy and Petrology Professor Marian Holness and Sir David Attenborough
