Ammolite Piece with Vibrant Blue - 9.5”
$3,800.00 USD
Ammolite is a rare, organic, opal-like gemstone made from ammolite shells, found in Alberta's Upper Cretaceous Bearpaw formation, just east of the Rocky Mountains. This fantastic piece displays a multitude of extremely bright hues, including large sections of vibrant blue/purple, and has an appealing, sculptural shape.
Ammonites belong to the Mollusca Phylum in a Class known as Cephalopods – “head-footed” creatures such as octopus and squid. They swam in ancient oceans from 400 million years ago, to their extinction, along with the dinosaurs, 66 million years ago.
Ammonites were free floating invertebrates that were attacked by plesiosaurs and mosasaurs, two groups of gigantic marine reptiles. One way that ammonites could avoid an attack was to quickly change their buoyancy levels, zig zagging and sinking rapidly.
These incredible prehistoric animals ranged in size from tiny species only a few centimetres in diameter to the monstrous Cretaceous ammonite, Parapuzosia seppenradensis, which grew to about 3 meters and would probably weigh close to 1500 kilograms!
TAXONOMY
- Kingdom: Animalia
- Phylum: Mollusca
- Class: Cephalopoda
GEOLOGICAL CONTEXT
- Formation: Bearpaw Formation
- Location: Southern Alberta, Canada
- Age: Late Cretaceous (71 million years old)
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
- Dimensions: 9.5” x 7.0” x 1.2” (24.1 cm x 17.8 cm x 3.1 cm)
- Dimensions on display: 10.2" x 5.95" x 5.9 (25.9 cm x 15.1 cm x 15 cm)
