Spectactular fossils of the Green River Formation

Large teeth and rear-placed fins make Phareodus encaustus well suited for catching and eating other fish.

Rocks of the Green River Formation contain a story of what the environment was like about 50 million years ago in what is now parts of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Streams draining the steep and newly formed mountains carried large amounts of sand, silt, mud and dissolved minerals into lakes that occupied the intermountain basis. Over time the sand, silt and mud began infilling the lakes. Abundant plants grew on broad swampy areas that developed around the margins of the lakes.

This 5.5 inch long bat is the most primitive known. Claws on each finger of its wings indicate it was probably an agile climber and crawled along and under tree branches searching for insects.

A lagerstätte is a sedimentary rock unit with fossil content. The Green River swamps and lakes provided an exceptional environment for fossil formation. The lakes and swamps were calm where remains were quickly buried by sediment. This resulted in one of Earth's most spectacular deposits of preserved plants, animals, insects and fish.

This 1.7 meter (5 foot 6 inch) softshell turtle is one of the largest turtles from Fossil Lake. During the Eocene, trionychid turtles reached maximum size.

This fully-articulated early horse is an extremely rare find.

The insect fossils from Fossil Lake sometimes show color patterns, wing venation, and sex-related characteristics.

Palm Tree Flower

Turritella Agate is the name used for a brown, translucent, fossiliferous agate found in the Green River Formation of Wyoming. It is easy to recognize because it contains large fossil snails that stand out in a white-to-tan color that contrasts with the brownish agate. This organic gem material was incorrectly named decades ago when the christener thought that the spectacular spiral-shaped gastropod (snail) fossils entombed within the stone were members of the marine Turritella genus. That was an error. The fossils are of the freshwater snail, Elimia tenera, a member of the Pleuroteridae family.

See ----->http://pennystockjournal.blogspot.ca/2015/08/christies-out-of-ordinary-auction.html
See ----->http://pennystockjournal.blogspot.ca/2015/06/the-burgess-shale-formation.html
See ----->http://pennystockjournal.blogspot.ca/2015/04/utahs-dinosaur-death-trap-reveals-trove.html

http://geology.com/articles/green-river-fossils/

Ancient Mysteries

Tarim Mummies. During an excavation beneath the Tarim Basin in western China, archaeologists were surprised to discover more than 100 mummified corpses that dated back 2,000 years. Victor Mair was stupefied when he found blonde-haired and long-nosed Tarim mummies after they were dug up and put on display at a museum. In 1993 Mair returned to collect DNA samples from the mummies. Test results validated his hunch that the bodies were of European genetic stock. While ancient Chinese texts describe groups of far-East dwelling Caucasian people, there is no mention of how or why they ended up there.

The Carnac Stones. With over 3,000 prehistoric standing stones, Carnac (in Brittany, France) is the largest megalithic site in the world. Not all of the Carnac stones were apparently set up for the same purpose. There are stone circles, rows of stones aligned perfectly, and even mausoleums with roofs made entirely of large stones. Stones may have been periodically placed over thousands of years, but a rough calculation for the beginning of the stone placements is 4000 BC.

Minoan Palace Ruins at Knossos

Fall of the Minoans. The Minoans were an Aegean Bronze Age civilization that arose on the island of Crete and flourished from about 2600 to 1400 BC. The Minoan eruption on the island of Thera (present-day Santorini) was among the largest volcanic explosions in the history of civilization. The eruption is believed to have severely affected the Minoan culture. Archaeological evidence found on Crete indicate that a massive tsunami, generated by the Theran eruption, devastated the coastal areas of Crete and destroyed many Minoan settlements.

Bog Bodies. A bog body is a human cadaver that has been naturally mummified in a peat bog. Such bodies, sometimes known as bog people, are widespread. Bog bodies have retained their skin and internal organs due to the unusual conditions of the bog. These conditions include highly acidic water, low temperature, and a lack of oxygen. The overwhelming majority of bog bodies have been found in Northern Europe, particularly Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The Helike Delta with the Gulf of Corinth at left.

Lost City of Helike Helike was situated on the northwestern part of the Peloponnesian peninsula. During its heyday, Helike was an important economic, cultural and religious centre. One night during the winter of 373 B.C., the city of Helike was obliterated. The rescue party that came in the following morning found no survivors. No trace of the legendary society existed outside of ancient Greek texts until 1861 when an archaeologist found a bronze coin with the unmistakable head of Poseidon. In 2001, a pair of archaeologists located the ruins of Helike.

Rongorongo. Rongorongo is an indecipherable hieroglyphic script used by the early inhabitants on Easter Island. While no other neighboring oceanic people possessed a written language, Rongorongo appeared mysteriously in the 1700s. The language was lost—along with the best hopes for ever deciphering it—after early European colonizers banned it.

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Spinel of Mahenge, Tanzania

In 2007 farmers in Mahenge, Tanzania found a giant spinel crystal weighing 52 kg.

The spinel crystal displayed the vibrant pink color that is now famous from Mahenge Spinel. The crystal was highly included, but large chunks of top quality stone were able to be cobbed off. Thousands of carats of gem quality gems were cut in Thailand and distributed to the world market. From this point on Mahenge Spinel was thrust into the spotlight as one of the world's most beautiful and vibrant gemstones.

Spinel is highly sought after by gem connoisseurs, and well-formed spinel crystals are in high demand among collectors. Red spinel range from orange-red to purplish red, with pure red considered the finest of all. A top-quality 5 carat red spinel might sell for around a tenth the price of an equivalent-quality ruby, and pink spinel often sells for less than pink sapphire.

Spinel with pargasite from Mahenge, Tanzania

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