Summer find

Hello friends!!!

I'm sure you know perfectly well how challenging Summer holiday can be, specially with small children :)

Putting them in a front of TV is the easiest option ever and not the best one I think - kids are addicted to screens (any sorts) these days. We decided to keep our boy as long as possible away from screens - not easy when raining outside.

Dom is crafty boy, so...

Having Paint Maker is one of options to avoid TV :), after mixing paints he is painting and wants us to paint too, so... great idea for nice family time :). Today had to buy more paper cause we run out of it :).
Colouring digi images is other of Dom's faves, 'playing' guitar and singing is brill too :), we also reading a lot - Dom loves our walks to library and choosing new books.

When weather is nice (read: no raining), we are trying our best to spend as much time as possible outside.
Walks, trips... no matter where, but together.

Last Monday Dom said he wants to go to the beach, but not our local beach, so... I took him to Whitley Bay. Our first stop was lighthouse on St Mary Island - tide was high so we only make photo with lighthouse in background.

Then we went for a beach, we had a small walk before had to hide in cafe (little rain) for muffin and drink. Later we decide to continue our beach trip :) We build huge sand castle and then we were collecting beach pebbles and sea glass pieces.

And we found this interesting stone:

Believe it or not you can feel texture under your finger tips!

I shared one of these pics on Instagram with question if it can be a fossil and had answer: yes it is definitely a fossil.

Dom likes this pebble a lot, so I decided to contact Hancock Museum to find out if they can help us to identify what kind of fossil our pebble can be. Man who answered my phone call transferred me to very nice and most helpful lady, Ms Sylvia Humphrey - Assistant Keeper of Geology in their museum, who's specialize in fossils.

After a nice chat I sent these photos to her by email and here what she sent us back:

'Dear Monika and Dominik

Thank you for sending me photos of your fossil. 

You are quite right in thinking that it is a fossil.  From what I can see, it appears to be a piece of fossilized coral preserved in a limestone pebble.  The gently curved parallel lines on the surface of the pebble represent the interior of a solitary coral, possibly Dibunophyllum sp., which is commonly found in Carboniferous limestone, the most likely origin of this fossil. 

I have attached an image of a polished piece of Frosterley Marble (we have a very large slab on display in the museum), a decorative dark grey limestone that contains numerous fossilized corals.  The textures within the corals are like those in your pebble.  The second photo is of two horn-shaped corals, which show what the individual corals might have looked like when alive - with the lower pointed end attached to the sea-floor. 

Your fossil is likely to be around 340 million years old.

Please do not hesitate to contact me, should you require further information.

Best wishes

Sylvia'

Wow, that was mind blowing news!!! We have 340 million years old fossil at home! Not bad holiday/summer souvenir for 5 years old boy!

We're planning little trip to Hancock museum to check more closely their fossil collection :)

That's all for today!