DSC_4895_Agatized whale bone free-form cabochon
This stuff is nice and solid. There is only the slightest undercutting of the matrix.
The water-clear quartz filling the voids really allows the delicate, lacy structure of the bone matrix to show through. What I find really interesting are the lines of crumbled bone material. I'm wondering if the breakage happened before or after death, or if it's even breakage -- maybe it is pieces meeting and fusing during growth.
From Morgan Hill, CA. Fossil whale bone in CA is from the Miocene period, and most appears to be somewhere in the range of 4-15 MYO. A whale fossil found in Scotts Valley (about 20 miles away, as the crow flies) was dated to be 4MYO. Numerous other finds hover in the 11-12MYO, but many of those are further South, so my guess would be that the younger end of that range is likely.
DSC_4895_Agatized whale bone free-form cabochon
This stuff is nice and solid. There is only the slightest undercutting of the matrix.
The water-clear quartz filling the voids really allows the delicate, lacy structure of the bone matrix to show through. What I find really interesting are the lines of crumbled bone material. I'm wondering if the breakage happened before or after death, or if it's even breakage -- maybe it is pieces meeting and fusing during growth.
From Morgan Hill, CA. Fossil whale bone in CA is from the Miocene period, and most appears to be somewhere in the range of 4-15 MYO. A whale fossil found in Scotts Valley (about 20 miles away, as the crow flies) was dated to be 4MYO. Numerous other finds hover in the 11-12MYO, but many of those are further South, so my guess would be that the younger end of that range is likely.