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awzen/I-found-a-seashell-in-the-middle-of-the-desert ·

github.com · 1,358 words · saved by 1 readers

To my amazement, I found a fully solid rock that eerily resembles a seashell at the base of a cliff in the Alghat desert, Saudi Arabia. I didn't know what to make of it at first, it had the swirls and shape of a seashell but was fully a rock, more importantly, it shouldn't be here; the nearest coastline is Dammam's, 500 km away. This looks impossible Carbonate rocks (e.g. limestone), marine fossils, coral fossils, and sedimentary structures (like ripples or bioturbation) all exist in and around Alghat, which points to the fact that parts of the Arabian Peninsula were once submerged under the sea. Specifically in the late Jurassic age (~150 million years ago)[1]. Stratigraphic distribution figure of areas near Najd[1] Nevertheless, I was still super curious about the fossil I found; what animal inhabited it? what did it look like back in the Jurassic age? any modern relatives or lookalikes? The proper way of answering these questions is to conduct a detailed analysis of the fossil (e.g.

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