Turquoise ps. after Fossil mammal bone (Ice Age)

Item Description

This incredibly well-preserved fragment of a fossil mammal bone from the Pleistocene Ice Age deposits of Nevada is now writ in turquoise. The 5.5 cm piece looks to be a thigh bone. The core of the fragment is filled with poorly sorted sandstone, the same as the matrix. These trickle out of the desert from time to time, found in handfuls by the lucky prospector. What happened is that copper-rich solutions flowing through the fossil beds of porous sandstone, from nearby copper deposits, altered the bone, or the fossilized bone, to turquoise. These replacements are generally complete all the way through (as this example is), and are invaluable to researchers as they preserve superb bone detail internally as well as externally. This is a highly representative example (of a marmot-like rodent, I am told), and the aesthetics are good. Very rarely seen on the market, and usually valued at around $1000-1200 and up per bone in matrix when I HAVE, rarely, seen them. This is a larger bone portion, than usually seen. Old material from the Bob Trimingham collection.