Data: I was wondering if you might be able to tell me what this fossil is. I found it in Southern California in the desert. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Send Ideas to: Jeremy Confer

Identified:

Discussions:

• Oyster of some kind... hard to know where to look, as it could be Paleozoic to Pleistocene. Probably Ostreidae... Andrew G.

• It's an oyster; there's a good chance that it has been called "Lopha" but there are gryphaeid and ostreids, not to mention several different genera in each family, that can look somewhat like that. The oldest oysters are Triassic. If he can find out anything about the local geology (try the California state geological survey), that would greatly help in narrowing down the age.
  Looking closely at the specimens with a hand lens, if broken surfaces show a foam-like internal structure, it's a gryphaeid.-- Dr. David Campbell

• is Dendostrea? vespertina (Conrad) a Miocene to Pliocene fossil from the Salton Trough of southern California....Chuck P.