March 5, 2012
Monday Geology Picture: Fossil Seashells at Barr Al-Hikman, Oman
Posted by Evelyn Mervine
For this week’s Monday Geology Picture post, I thought I would share some more pictures from my trip in January to Barr Al-Hikman, Oman. A few weeks ago, I posted about some crabs and their traces at Barr Al-Hikman. This week I am sharing some pictures of some large, beautiful, fossilized seashells which we observed along one of the beaches at Barr Al-Hikman. I believe that these seashell fossils formed fairly recently. I think that the seashell species (or perhaps a close relative) still exists today in Omani waters. Also, some of the fossilized shells contain un-fossilized shell fragments.
Can anyone identify the seashell species and give me any more information about these beautiful fossils?
Below are a few more pictures of the seashell fossils. Note that the fossils form as both molds and casts. Also note the pencil for scale.
Very cool pics. I know nothing about shells from that area
They look like scallop shells to me and most likely formed in the Pliocene to Pleistocene epochs (100,000 – 3,000,000 mya). This might be especially true if you find unfossilzed shell in with the molds/casts. Not a whole lot of info out on the web for Omani Geology though.