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>how do you tell a shell is a fossil? <
If it still smells bad, it is not a fossil.
Good preservation of colors is probably Recent, though fossils can
preserve remnant color patterns (usually as brown markings) and may
generally show a color either from mineral deposits (e.g., black or
rusty) or else as calcitic shells (often brown or gray).
A sun-bleached or otherwise aged-looking Recent shell can be hard to
tell from a fossil just by looking at it. If there's a scientific
need to find out, there are various dating methods, more or less
destructive to the shell, that can help (amino acid racemezation, 14C,
etc.)
--
Dr. David Campbell
425 Scientific Collections
University of Alabama
"I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
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