Felt fossils

I am a geologist's daughter. The perfect beach is belemnites in shale, not sand. A good walk is hunting for graptolites on a scree slope. Every year for his birthday I make one of my dad's fossil finds from felt. Here are two of them (there is even a poem about discovering and excavating one of them.)

Here is the felted and original coral Actinocyathus floriformis (it is probably this anyway- it is an atypical growth form says father, the geologist). This Actinocyathus floriformis rock is 320 million years old. I made the felt two years ago.

Below those are the orignal and felted form of a brittlestar Palaeocoma milleri. The rock version is 185 million years old (my father, the geologist, spent 30 hours prepping it and it then won Fossil of Year on the United States Fossil Forum). The felt version is somewhat younger, took 10 hours to make, and has not yet won any competitions.

Brittlestar

The day my dad found

The Fossil of the Year

I spent the afternoon with

wet socks,

It was a Race Against the Tide

To chisel it out,

My dad kept saying

it was impossible,

I don't remember him swearing,

(that's just for driving).

It wasn't impossible of course,

I looked in rock-pools

+ thought the whole thing

Would be good on TV.

My mum threw things for the dog,

We all tried to be encouraging,

It was a heavy rock to carry home.

#felt #fossils #coral