• Question: What is the shiniest fossil you have found?

    Asked by finleyisaraisin to Karen on 18 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Karen Bacon

      Karen Bacon answered on 18 Nov 2013:

      Hi finleyisaraisin,
      Fossil plants are often not all that shiny. However, sometimes while they are being fossilised, they get infilled with minerals that can be a little shiny. The shiniest one that I have come across is a type of large horsetail from the Jurassic – part of the stem had some shiny minerals in there and it was really pretty. Coal is also compressed fossils and depending on how compressed the coal has been can be quite shiny too.

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