Fossilised: Paleontology in Piopio

Some cold, winter mornings we all feel just that little bit stiff, don't we?

But I'm not talking about us getting older and fossilised (or ossified). I'm talking about the fossilised shell in the large limestone rock John uncovered down at the pond here at Struan Farm. He mentioned it to me the other day, since we're getting ready to fence that side of the pond. The fencing wood has just been delivered. I'm meant to be putting in native plants around the end once that's finished. Despite the muck from recent rains I decided to don my gumboots and trundle down to see if I could find this fossil in the rock.

I did, with Clifford's help.

We continue to find fossilised shells in limestone rocks around the farm. I suspect what this particular find means is that we will continue to expose this rock beside the pond further, another project.

John remembers his family sending rocks with fossils to the University of Canterbury in 1963, when the re-routed State Highway was blasted through and rocks were thrown up in the surrounding area (not a roading practice undertaken today, to say the least). They received a report back indicating that the samples were 70 million years ago. I'm assuming this meant someone down there did some carbon dating rather than hazarded a guess, but John can't remember that either way. He does remember getting the news back since it was rather a big deal in the day.

The family, recyclers always, picked up quite a few rocks thrown up by the blasting and used them to edge gardens. Many of these rocks remain around the Homestead gardens today, including this rather special one full of fossilised shells:

 

Hopefully we'll find more beside the pond in due course. At which point we'll add "paleontologist in Piopio" to our resumes.

Comments

[Jen Yates]

You may become known as the Fossil Lady, about as great as being known as the Antique Lady! :)

[Karen]

And here John worries about me becoming the crazy butterfly lady!