PING @Arch: Professional knowledge sought!

[Fab Foodie]

Hi Arch
Got a question of an archaeological bent .....

Found in S. London garden a Sea Urchin embedded in a piece of flint.
How come?

 

[ianrauk]

You forgot to size it against a 20p piece

 

[Drago]

Isn't that more of a palaeontological questions?

 

[nickyboy]

You forgot to size it against a 20p piece

You could use double decker buses, or Nelson's columns. That's assuming it is actually the largest mollusc known to man and @Fab Foodie is of similarly giant proportions

 

[Fab Foodie]

Isn't that more of a palaeontological questions?

Probably ....

 

[Fab Foodie]

Why advice? Is it attacking you?

er, dunno, seemed a simple enough question when I wrote it, but it is perplexing me, does that count?

 

[Beebo]

seems to be quite common for these fossils to form in flints.
http://www.discoveringfossils.co.uk/flint_formation_fossils.htm

 

[IDMark2]

There he was, minding own business on a sea bed of sand and then, bang, lights go out.., 200 million years later and some bugger's flashing, showing your photograph off 'cause all he wants to know is if anyone has any Sea Urchin recipes...

 

[Paulus]

I would say that back in prehistoric times most of the south of England was under the sea. In Coldfall Woods in Muswell Hill, north London, various fosilised sea creatures can be found, and the woods are well above modern sea levels.

 

[TheDoctor]

Paulus is bang on the money. 90-odd million years ago, most of northern Europe was under water, and the sea bottom gradually became chalk. Over the millennia, silica within the chalk formed flint nodules, like the one stuck to the remains of the sea urchin above.

 

[Arch]

Thank you everyone who got here first, I now know the answer, coz I'm blowed if I'd have known it before...

But I'm flattered to have been asked. Fossils aren't my specialism.

 

[ufkacbln]

It is NOT a baby elephant

 

[Brandane]

There he was, minding own business on a sea bed of sand and then, bang, lights go out.., 200 million years later and some bugger's flashing, showing your photograph off 'cause all he wants to know is if anyone has any Sea Urchin recipes...

Either that, or someone's been "daaaan the beach at Saaarfend", and picked it up; got back to Laaandon on the number 23, then decided to lob it into FF's garden.

 

[Fnaar]

Looks a bit like a stale jellied eel to me, gor blimey, luv a duck, we only killed our own sort or mum would clip our ears, dahn to Margit.