Dinosaur Coprolite, Late Jurassic, Fossilized Over 150 Million Years

Details

Description

Specimen:
Dinosaur Coprolite

Period:
Third Epoch / Late Jurassic

Site:
Morrison Formation

Collected:
Utah, USA

Dimensions:
6.05 x 3.02 x … Read more Specimen:
Dinosaur Coprolite

Period:
Third Epoch / Late Jurassic

Site:
Morrison Formation

Collected:
Utah, USA

Dimensions:
6.05 x 3.02 x 1.58 inches
(15.36 x 7.68 x 4.02 cm)

This large, elongated and irregular oval shaped piece of Coprolite represents fossilized feces, in this case, approximately 150 million years old, from the Jurassic of Utah.

Impressive size, measuring a full six inches across, this example features a highly polished window surface with a variety of bold, muted colors, including fiery reds, bright whites, intricate veining and various other patterns.

The bona fide trace fossil variety is ironically somewhat egg-shaped, and its rugged mottled exterior exhibits dome form and granularity. The small stand that can be seen in the photographs is included.

Provenance:
Acquired from the reputable auction house, Heritage Auction, Design District Gallery, Dallas, Texas.

A superb example of natural science and history, unique and decorative, richly detailed and colorful, it presents wonderfully, excellent for display, decor, or investment, it's important, interesting, highly unusual, a bit fun, and certainly conversational.

Brief background:
Classified as trace fossils, or a fossil record of biological activity, as they give evidence for the animal's behaviour (in the case of Coprolite, diet) rather than morphology, as opposed to body fossils, not the preserved remains of the plant or animal itself. Like other fossils, coprolites have had much of their original composition replaced by mineral deposits such as silicates and calcium carbonates.

The Morrison Formation is centered in Wyoming and Colorado, with outcrops in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Idaho.

Equivalent rocks under different names are found in Canada. It covers an area of 1.5 million square kilometers (600,000 square miles), although only a tiny fraction is exposed and accessible to geologists and paleontologists. Over 75% is still buried under the prairie to the east, and much of its western paleogeographic extent was eroded during exhumation of the Rocky Mountains.

It was named after Morrison, Colorado, where the first fossils in the formation were discovered by Arthur Lakes in 1877. That same year, it became the center of the Bone Wars, a fossil-collecting rivalry between early paleontologists Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope. In Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah, the Morrison Formation was a major source of uranium ore

Geologic history:
According to radiometric dating, the Morrison Formation dates from 156.3 ± 2 million years old (Ma) at its base, to 146.8 ± 1 million years old at the top, which places it in the earliest Kimmeridgian, and early Tithonian stages of the late Jurassic. This is similar in age to the Solnhofen Limestone Formation in Germany and the Tendaguru Formation in Tanzania. The age and much of the fauna is similar to the Lourinhã Formation in Portugal. Throughout the western United States, it variously overlies the Middle Jurassic Summerville, Sundance, Bell Ranch, Wanakah, and Stump Formations.

At the time, the supercontinent of Laurasia had recently split into the continents of North America and Eurasia, although they were still connected by land bridges. North America moved north and was passing through the subtropical regions.

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