Shadows in stone

I've been hanging out with the old fossils again today. This one is of a horseshoe crab (I'm sure it has a more scientific name but I wasn't paying attention) and I think it's over 200 million years old and was found somewhere in Germany (again, I should have listened more carefully). The frond like pattern which I thought was a plant is actually mineral deposits.

It's great being allowed into the back rooms and storage areas of the museum. But oh so tempting to have a rummage in boxes and cabinets housing such delights as dinosaur poo, gas masks and old gramophone records. N.B. these were different boxes.

I should probably point out that this fossil is the wrong way way up, as I learned today that the convention is to show fossils head to the top.

I also now know all sorts of trivia about long dead fish and continental drift (unlike the crab info I was paying attention to the fish and rock stuff). One of the things I like about my job is that it makes me absorb so much information about vastly different subjects. Fortunately I only need to retain it for short periods of time, until the jobs done. Then I can delete as necessary. It do however keep some of it filed under handy for pub quizzes.