Data:

My local museum has asked me to help identify a series of fossils collected from glacial drift here in Essex, England.

They were mainly Inoceramid bivalve fragments, plus some flint nodules with superficial indications of biological origin.

However, there was also the fossil in the attached picture, which is a mystery to me. The chert matrix is the same as for the Inoceramids indicating I think a late Cretaceous age, but I’ve seen nothing like it before. I can’t even be totally sure it’s molluscan as it does not appear to be coiled, but I would welcome and value the scrutiny of the combined expertise of the visitors to your site.

Can you help?

Simon Taylor

Email: Simon

Ideas:

• Possibly a sponge. ...Allen A.

• Actually I think the thing is coiled - just not in the direction you might have expected. It looks to me like a Turritella or something similar, an elongate, slender, multi-whorled gastropod. ...Paul M.