Crystal Filled Fossil Gastropod Fossil - Ruck's Pit, Florida

This is a partial fossil gastropod from the the famous Ruck's Pit quarry in Florida. The matrix is 3.5 inches wide and the interior is filled with a partial gastropod covered with golden-yellow calcite crystals, almost like a fossil geodes. They are early Pleistocene in age, or somewhere around 2 million years. The matrix has small clams and gastropods mixed throughout it.

It comes from "Ruck's Pit" in Florida. Ruck's Pit was a small cement quarry, that for several years in the early 2000's produced some amazing crystal lined fossils. The quarry has been shut down and filled in with water for several years, so these fossils are no longer being found. Because of this it's difficult to acquire these remarkable crystal filled fossil shells, particularly ones of high quality such as this one.

Welk's were predatory sea snails that fed mainly on bivalves.

A geological paper on they unique geology and fossil occurrences in Ruck's Pit can be found here.