Strange things can sometimes be found in the back yard. A somewhat rusty coin, a missing button … this is not uncommon. And how about a fossil from the Pangea era? Do not you believe it? Well, that’s exactly what happened to Siddak Singh Jhamat. He is originally from the city of Walsall (Great Britain). He is the boy who found a fossil in his garden that is several million years old. He did it while looking for worms.
Precise gift
At Christmas the boy had received a kit for finding fossils as a gift. That encouraged him to dig. “I was just digging for worms and things like ceramics and bricks. And I found this stone that looked a bit like a horn. So I thought it might be a tooth or a claw or a horn. But it was actually a piece of coral called horn coral, ”explains 6-year-old Siddak Singh. It is quoted by the British media. “I was very excited about what it really was,” he adds.
“We were surprised that he found something so strange on the ground. He found a horn coral and some smaller pieces nearby. Then he dug again the next day and found a frozen sand block, ”explains Sid’s father Vish Singh. There were many small mollusks and shells in it. Also called “something crinoideo, it’s like an octopus tentacle. So it’s a pretty prehistoric thing, “he concludes.
The man was able to identify the horn coral thanks to a group specializing in fossils Facebook. It was probably a rough coral, he realized. The estimated age is between 251 and 488 million years. Great Britain at that time was part of Pangea, the great supercontinent. England was under water for some time, as Singh explains.
The only case
The area where the family lives is not rich in fossils. On the other hand is the Jurassic Coast in the south of the United Kingdom. But the family has a lot of natural clay in the garden where the boy found the object.
The family even plans to contact the University of Birmingham’s Museum of Geology after the unexpected find.
“A lot of people say how amazing it is to find something in the backyard,” says Sid’s father. “You can find fossils anywhere if you look closely. But discovering such a large piece is something very special, “he says. The boy who found a fossil in his garden really has a future as a paleontologist.
