Pharyngula

Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM | November 6, 2009 10:06 AM

I'm not that pretty
Even while I am alive
Dead, I will be worse

Posted by: Sman | November 6, 2009 10:15 AM

Nautiloids- the bastard off-spring of the cephalopods... err,

Posted by: IaMoL | November 6, 2009 10:20 AM

I just bought a a polished ammonite yesterday at Rock Barrel in Dallas, by coincidence. They are beautiful objects.

Posted by: Sili | November 6, 2009 10:24 AM

No, I plan to fit in an ashtray by then.

Hmmm - since ashtrays seemed to be a stable of kids' claywork in school, perhaps I should hint at the need for an urn, should I be so misfortunate as to get nephews/nieces.

Posted by: JBlilie | November 6, 2009 10:25 AM

We have a few of these. Just gorgeous. Also some trilobite fossils on which you can even see the lenses of the compound eyes. Very cool.

Posted by: Alessa Mendes | November 6, 2009 10:43 AM

I'm not that pretty now...

Posted by: Ring Tailed Lemurian | November 6, 2009 10:46 AM

When my children were young our favourite day out was to drive down to Seatown in Dorset on England's "Jurassic Coast" and look for fossils. We sometimes found ammonites fossils, up to about 3cms, composed of "fool's gold". They make beautiful earrings.

Seatown also has a wonderful beach with a huge (>100m) platform of thousands upon thousands of belemnite fossils (and the odd ammonite). There are so many that it's impossible to walk across it without stepping on fossils with almost every step.

Posted by: Glen Davidson | November 6, 2009 11:12 AM

I intend to opalize like some ammonite shells have.

If that works out well enough, why yes, I'll be at least that pretty when I'm dead.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

Posted by: Happy Tentacles | November 6, 2009 11:52 AM

I usually carry a small ammonite in my jacket pocket. Something so ancient and beautiful puts everyday trivia in perspective.

Posted by: Evie | November 6, 2009 12:12 PM

Drooooool......and that is why they are my favorite. They are so beautiful. *sigh*

Posted by: DLC | November 6, 2009 12:21 PM

Evolution, yes you'll be there when I'm gone.

Posted by: Alan B | November 6, 2009 1:42 PM

#14 Ring Tailed Lemurian

Greetings fellow primate, tails high!

For those who might want to know more about the Belemnite Marls, the Green Ammonite Beds and the rest of the Lias (Lower Jurassic) there is a fantastic labour of love produced by Professor Ian West (retired) from Southampton University that covers the World Heritage Coast of England. Someone reckoned it was currently at 1000+ pages but any figure is likely to be wrong because he continues to add and update. If you have any interest at all in British geology, this site is worth a look!

You will find the occasional photo of the Professor. He appears to be the very model of a mad English geologist ...

http://www.soton.ac.uk/~imw/Stonebarrow.htm

http://www.soton.ac.uk/~imw/Golden-Cap.htm

Just 2 sections of many.

Posted by: BlueMonday | November 6, 2009 7:48 PM

If we're quoting Tom Waits, this may be more appropriate:
And you'll die with the rose still on your lips
And in the time the heart-shaped bone
That was your hips
And all the worms they will climb
The rugged ladder of your spine
We're all mad here

And my eyeballs roll this terrible terrain
We're all inside a decomposing train
And your eyes will die like fish
And the shore of your face will turn to bone

(Sounds about as pretty as I can expect.)

Posted by: John Scanlon, FCD | November 7, 2009 6:21 AM

Black Cat #11 (and Lemurian #14), you'd better enjoy it while it lasts (or get it embedded in resin or something). Pyrite is unstable in an oxygen atmosphere, turns to dust on a scale of decades. Like most of us.

Speaking of mortality to cute furry critters, we had a sad loss today, after the five-year-old (when no-one was looking) looped a bootlace round the neck of our young Ragdoll cat, like you always warn them not to, and he ran off and got a trailing knot caught in a fork of the Frangipani tree behind the house, while we were out. Hug your kitties and kids, if you've got'em. I dug the grave in the front yard where we can keep an eye on it, the kids helped pile rocks over it to keep dogs out, and nobody talked any bullshit to them.

Lots of belemnites in the Cretaceous a little east of where we live, ammonites pretty uncommon but I saw one half-exposed in a river bed up near Normanton (Gulf of Carpentaria) that looked a lot like a truck tyre. The tread was a bit worn, but not bad for 100 million years.

Posted by: llewelly | November 8, 2009 11:18 AM

No surprise to find atheists worshiping Ammonites. As anyone familiar with the Old Testament knows, God hated the Ammonites.