Fossil Turritella & Ammonite Earrings - Sterling Silver

This is a pair of beautiful earrings made from polished, agatized gastropod (snail) fossils from Wyoming. These fossils are Eocene in age or approximately 45-50 million years old. While they are commonly referred to as Turritella, these ones are technically of the species Elimia tenera. Elimia is a genus of freshwater snail while Turritella lived in salt water.

There are also 110 million year old cut and polished ammonite fossils on these earrings. These ammonites are quarried in the Mahajanga Province province of Madagascar and lived at a time when dinosaurs ruled the earth. The polishing allows the stunning inner chambers to be seen which have been replaced by agate over millions of years.

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
Elimia tenera
AGE
LOCATION
Near Fort Bridger, WY
FORMATION
Bridger Formation
SIZE
Turritella 1" Tall
ITEM
#82265
GUARANTEE
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