Fossil Fish Pendant - SOLD 1.61"
Fossil Fish Pendant - SOLD 1.61"
This specimen is a complete fossil fish imprint set into a beautiful sterling silver backing. The anatomy of the fish is still visible even after millions of years. It measures 1.61" wide and includes an 18" sterling silver wheat chain.
📸 The Fossil Fish Pendant
A Fantastic Fossil Fish
This specimen is a magnificent and one-of-a-kind pendant that contains a fossilized imprint of a small fish. It is a portal to an aquatic world from millions of years previous in our planet's past.
Jewelry-grade fossils like this are quite rare, so we are excited to offer this unique item in the shop. You can see the clear structure of the fish's form, which has been set into beautiful sterling silver. An 18" chain is included as well.
This necklace ships in a padded black jewelry box. Want to learn more about fossil fish? Check out information on Fossil Lake in Wyoming or explore the Sannine Formation collection below!
"At prominent places in my office, I have several small slabs of rock containing Knightia, my modest hymn to evolution. Fish, after all, are the ancestors of all four-legged creatures." - M. Dane Picard, Geologist
More About Fossil Fish and the Fossil Lake of Wyoming
📸 Fossilized in mid-swallow from Paleontology of the Green River Formation, with a Review of the Fish Fauna. This Knightia proved to be too large to swallow and the larger fish died as a result.
The Wyoming STate Fossil
Fossil fish can be found all over the world, but few sites can compare to Fossil Lake in Wyoming. These fossils provide an understanding not just of the fish themselves, but the environment they lived in. Consider Knightia eocaena, a small schooling fish. They were related to modern day herrings and sardines and evidence suggests a similar diet of algae and insects, though they were also known to eat tiny fish.
In the fossil beds of Wyoming’s Fossil Lake, Knightia specimens often appear in large clusters known as mass mortality plates. These clusters can contain up to 100 fish per square meter and suggest the Knightia had a high sensitivity to changes in its environment which could lead to sudden death. This in turn allows paleontologists to speculate on the ancient environment the fish lived in.
📸 Map of the Fossil Lake and the other Eocene lakes in the area imposed over a modern state and city map. The red square marks the survey area in the source reference. Green marks areas elevated during Eocene. (Source: Meacham, Amanda L., 2017, Unique Preservation of Fossil Ghost Fish in Green River Formation, MS Thesis Loma Linda University)
The Wonders of Fossil Lake
Roughly fifty miles long and two miles wide, Fossil Lake was the smallest of the three major lakes in the Green River Formation. The other lakes, Lake Gosiute and Lake Uinta, were orders of magnitude larger, with Gosiute estimated to be 120 miles (200 km) wide and Uinta at 185 miles (300 km) wide.
Comparative geochemical studies suggest that the waters of Fossil Lake lacked the oxygen needed to sustain scavengers. Without scavengers, decaying bodies were less likely to be picked apart for meat and left undisturbed. It is also theorized that microbial mats would drift over the corpses of fish, keeping the skeletons articulated underneath a layer of pressure.
Further Reading
Picard, M. D. "Wilbur Clinton Knight: Portrait of a Pioneer Geologist in Wyoming." Rocky Mountain Geology, vol. 46, no. 1, 2011, pp. 101-109.
Hellawell, J., Orr, P.J. “Deciphering taphonomic processes in the Eocene Green River Formation of Wyoming.” Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments, vol. 92, no. 1, 2012, pp. 353–365.
Frantz, C., et. al., “Dramatic local environmental change during the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum detected using high resolution chemical analyses of Green River Formation stromatolites.” Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, vol. 405, 2014, pp. 1-15.
Grande, L. “A Revision of the Fossil Genus Knightia, With a Description of a New Genus From the Green River Formation (Teleostei, Clupeidae).” American Museum Novitates, no 2731, 1982, pp. 1-22.
Meacham, Amanda L., "Unique Preservation of Fossil Ghost Fish in the Green River Formation" (2017). Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects. 403.
Vanden Berg, M.D., Birgenheier, L.P. “An examination of the hypersaline phases of Eocene Lake Uinta, upper Green River Formation, Uinta Basin, Utah.” J Paleolimnol, vol. 58, 2017, pp. 353–371.
Grande, Lance. Paleontology of the Green River Formation, with a Review of the Fish Fauna. Geological Survey of Wyoming, 1984.
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