Jurassic Walls

There has been a trend in recent years for garden designers to incorporate ammonite replicas in garden plans.  Many garden centres now stock a range of ammonite replicas, usually cast in concrete that can be placed around rockeries to add interest and make a bit of a feature.

However, Brandon Lennon of www.lymeregisfossilwalks.com has sent us some photographs of a real ammonite fossil set in a wall – the ultimate in ammonite sculpture, your very own real fossil to have in your garden.  Brandon tells us that he took a party of keen fossil enthusiasts out on one of his guided walks along the beaches of Lyme Regis Bay and one lucky member of the group found a super ammonite fossil.

Ammonite Fossil

The date was Saturday July 5th and sharp eyed Brandon led the party to a good location to find fossils heading west out of the town, along Monmouth beach to Seven Rocks Point.  The group discovered a super specimen of a Microderoceras ammonite, and Brandon carefully extracted the fossil and carried it back to his workshop to undertake some preliminary cleaning.  The next day, the finder of this beautiful fossil came to collect it and now the Microderoceras has pride of place in a garden wall.

The Wall with the Fossil Ammonite

Picture credit: Piers Hanson

The wall and ammonite fossil certainly make an interesting feature and a talking point in the garden.  After all, there are not many gardeners that can boast that they have 180 million-year-old masonry.

A Close up of the Fossil

Ammonite in a wall.

Picture credit: Piers Hanson

Ammonite Replicas

The fossil looks most impressive and certainly has received a great deal of care and attention from the wall builder.  We are unsure of the scale, so we cannot tell how big the fossil is.  However, specimens of Microderoceras sp. are relatively common at Lyme Regis, in fact this genus is used by geologists and palaeontologists as a zone fossil to aid with biostratigraphic analysis of strata (common fossils help scientist work out the order of deposition).

Ammonite Replicas from Everything Dinosaur

A Bullyland ammonite model is used to help illustrate a display of ammonite fossils. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Bullyland of Germany have created an ammonite model that is featured in the picture (above).  To view the range of Bullyland models and figures: Bullyland Prehistoric Animal Models.

Although we cannot be certain from the pictures, but it looks like the fossil represents an internal mould of the shell, some fine detail particularly the septae on the inner whorls can be seen.  Had the fossil not been removed, it would have been subjected to weathering and attritional processes and eventually broken up on the beach.

Our thanks to Brandon Lennon and Piers Hanson for allowing us to use these pictures.

To visit: Brandon Lennon’s fossil shop: Lyme Regis Fossils for Sale.