8" Fossil Ammonite (Subplanites) - Solnhofen Limestone, Germany

This is a 8" wide fossil ammonite (Subplanites) from the Upper Jurassic Solnhofen Limestone of Germany. It's nicely centered on a beautiful slab of limestone and comes with a display stand. There is one repaired crack running through the center of the rock.

The Solnhofen limestone is a famous Upper Jurassic lagerstätte in Germany. It is where one of the most famous fossils of all time, Archaeopteryx, was found. The fine-grained limestone makes excellent building material, which has led to heavy quarrying over the past two centuries. In the process, some spectacular fossils were unearthed, including fossil dragonflies, fish, pterosaurs, shrimp, horseshoe crabs, and many more.

This area represents an ancient archipelago at the edge of a sea. Due to high salt content, the lowest levels in the water column could not support much life and were largely devoid of oxygen. This lack of oxygen and scavengers on the bottom of the sea led to beautiful fossil preservation.



Ammonites were predatory cephalopod mollusks that resembled squids with spiral shells. They are more closely related to living octopuses, though their shells resemble that of nautilus species. True ammonites appeared in the fossil record about 240 million years ago during the Triassic Period. The last lineages disappeared 65 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous.

What an ammonite would have looked like while alive.
What an ammonite would have looked like while alive.
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DETAILS
SPECIES
Subplanites sp.
LOCATION
Hienheim, Germany
FORMATION
Solnhofen Limestone
SIZE
8" long on 14.4x9.5" limestone
ITEM
#101578
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