RE: paleonet fantastic flint forms

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Dear Ms. Gjerloff,

Your e-mail message caught my attention.  I see a lot of these things, which
I call  curious stones.  Here are a few examples.

The first has to do with septarian nodules.  People often find these things
and are sure they are dinosaur eggs or fossil turtles.  A shale bed crops
out nearby.  It has septaria that are about 25 cm across and perhaps 8 cm
thick.  About 25 years ago I was working in my laboratory on a Sunday
afternoon when the telephone rang.  The night before an attorney from
California had seen a television program on dinosaur eggs in the Gobi
desert.  He recalled his boyhood days in Kansas, finding the septaria, and
referring to them as dinosaur eggs.  He said, "Now I know it is probably
nothing, but I thought I should mention them to someone."  I explained to
him what they are and how they form.
Somewhere in western Kansas is a woman who owns what she knows to be a
fossil baby's head.  She will not send it to me for identification, probably
thinking that I, being one of those unscrupulous scientists she has read
about, might steal it from her.  Local school teachers and others, hoping to
get rid of her, have encouraged her unfortunately, probably by saying such
things as, "Yes, you've surely got something there all right."  She wants me
to contact her the next time I drive to the west.  She will arrange to meet
me and have me identify her object.  Of course, she will not be interested
in the truth.  I suspect that it is a nodule with three openings:  two eyes
and a mouth.  Unfortunately, I have lost her telephone number and may never
know for certain.
A sedimentologist colleague brought me a chunk of limestone that looks for
all the world like a fossil human foot.  It even has a brachiopod shell
where the toenail of the big toe should be.  It is remarkable and is the
sort of thing that would generate all sorts of speculation among people who
do not understand rocks and the vagaries of nature.  I still have it in my
collection if you would like a picture.

I recall a visit to a tourist trap in Colorado during my boyhood.  On
display was a FOSSILIZED INDIAN, apparently anatomically correct (except
that in those days one carefully covered genitalia).  It was clear to me
even as a 10-year-old that the Indian had been carved from basalt.

A number of years ago someone in the US published a calendar or perhaps just
a coffee-table book that had pictures of obscene objects produced by nature.
Most were curiously shaped trees, but a few were stones.  It was spectacular
and reminded me of the woman who complained about her psychiatrist because
he showed her pictures of ink blots "doing the most dreadful things" or the
other young woman who complained to a friend that her new boy friend
"whistles dirty songs."
I manage a display in my building at the university entitled ROCK OF THE
WEEK.  Each week I put on display a rock, fossil, mineral, or pseudorock;
write a little poem about it; and sometimes ask people to speculate on the
origin of the object.  It is a lot of fun; it attracts a lot of interest;
and it is a good way to show people what a wide variety of things nature has
produced.
Best wishes,
Roger
Roger L. Kaesler
Paleontological Institute-University of Kansas
Lindley Hall
1475 Jayhawk Blvd., Room 121
Lawrence, Kansas 66045-7613
(785) 864-3338 = telephone
(785) 864-5276 = FAX
kaesler@ku.edu =e-mail
http://www.ukans.edu/~paleo/

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