Heavy rock: 15-stone fossil found 115million years on
A PAIR of student fossil-hunters found a 15- stone specimen on a British beach – then spent eight hours digging it out.
The sea creature is believed to be 115million years old. Weighing 96kg (210lb), it is about the same size as a car tyre.
Jack Wonfor, 19, and Theo Vickers, 21, discovered the Tropaeum Bowerbanki ammonite – part of the mollusc family – on the remote shores of Chale Bay on the Isle of Wight.
The area is known as ‘Dinosaur Island’ because it contains so many ancient remains.
The University of Portsmouth students – who are also founders of the group Wight Coast Fossils – spent two hours carefully chiselling to remove the ammonite from surrounding rock, then another eight hours hauling it out to properly examine it.
The fossil dates back to when the area was a warm coastal sea teeming with ammonites, which are now extinct, as well as plenty of fish, reptiles and sharks. Mr Wonfor and Mr Vickers described the fossil as ‘an awesome example of just how massive some of these... could grow to’. They said the creature would have ‘cruised through the turbulent coastal waters... catching and ensnaring passing plankton and small prey with its tentacles’. The students believe the ammonite is likely to be a female as these were larger due to the role they played in the reproductive process. The pair will continue to remove rock surrounding the fossil over the next few weeks to examine the ammonite ‘that lays within’.