Fish Head or Rock? A stone that sat for 15 years in a Kent rockery has been identified as the fossilised head of an 80m-year-old fish. The rock was found on a beach during a family holiday by Peter Parvin, 74, reports the Daily Telegraph.
Mr Parvin, a former policeman who is now deputy mayor of Maidstone, mentioned the stone in a conversation with a constituent. The constituent said Mr Parvin should submit the rock for testing by Dr Ed Jarzembowski, a keeper of natural history at Maidstone Museum.
After analysing it, Dr Jarzembowski confirmed it was a fossil, and was “virtually indestructible” as it was preserved in flint, rather than chalk. He said it dated from the Cretaceous Period – between 145m and 65m years ago.
He said: “Quite simply it is priceless. I have shown it to other geologists and they are certain that it is absolutely a fossil. It’s not a sculpture. “It has been heavily weathered because it has sat in a rockery for so long and before that it was a beach pebble but it is certainly an 80 million-year-old fossil. “I’m told there are a few of them in private hands, but I’ve never seen one before. It’s quite a privilege.”
Mr Parvin said: “We always bring back a stone from wherever we go on holiday, and we picked up this one because it looked like a fish head and was most unusual. I didn’t think any more about it.”
He could not remember exactly where he had picked it up, but said it was somewhere between Pevensey near Eastbourne, East Sussex, and Dungeness, Kent.
source: Ananova