80-Million-Year-Old Fish Found In Rock: Not Another Tall Tale

Buy an ad on DigitalJournal.com

According to news sources, Peter Parvin, aged 74, a former policeman who is now the deputy mayor of Maidstone, Kent, was on a holiday at the beach with his family some 15 years ago when he found a most unusually shaped rock. He said of the experience:

We always bring back a stone from wherever we go on holiday, and we picked up this one because it looked like a fish head and was most unusual. I didn't think any more about it.

But after a conversation with someone who worked at a local museum, Parvin decided to submit the rock for further testing to Dr. Ed Jarzembowski, a keeper of natural history at the museum. After careful analysis, the doctor confirmed that it was indeed a fossil from the Cretaceous period (between 145 and 65 million years ago) and “virtually indestructible” as it was preserved in flint rather than the more typical chalk.

Dr. Jarzembowski said:

Quite simply it is priceless. I have shown it to other geologists and they are certain that it is absolutely a fossil. It's not a sculpture. It has been heavily weathered because it has sat in a rockery for so long and before that it was a beach pebble but it is certainly an 80 million-year-old fossil. I'm told there are a few of them in private hands, but I've never seen one before. It's quite a privilege.

The doctor could not say what type of fish it was, other than that it was an example of an “advanced bony fish related to the sort we might have for dinner today”. Parvin could not remember where he had found the amazing fossil 15 years ago, but he has slated its new home as the Maidstone Museum upon the fossil’s return from more testing in Poland.

Go figure and shiver.

Quite a fish tale and this time…it isn’t about the one that got away!