Natural Science Forum / Biology / Paleontology / February 2004

At Bailly, near Auxerre, southeast of Paris, the river Yonne runs at the foot of
a steep limestone escarpment.  Most of the limestone used in the building of
Paris came from this escarpment, leaving large caverns, which are now used as
cellars for maturing wine.  Last year we visited these, and when we had finished
the tour we walked up the road to the top of the escarpment.  The road is cut
into the escarpment, with a fairly high bank on the uphill side.  Near the top I
found a pile of loose pieces of limestone in the gutter, and examined them out
of curiosity.  One had a very strange fossil, which is unlike anything I have
seen before, either animal or vegetable.  It is shaped roughly like a gherkin,
and the inside appears to have been empty, apart from a row of very strange
structures which appear to have formed a spiral.  It has broken roughly along
the centre line, and the cross-section of these internal structures looks like a
line of some Asian writing along each side.

Several photos of the fossil are shown at the reference below, and I would be
very grateful if anybody can tell me what it is.  I have already posted this
message to sci.geo.geology.

I apologise for my very primitive website -- this is my first attempt at
building one.

http://home.pacific.net.au/~riordan/Strange%20fossil.htm

Roger Riordan AM