Piperock

This is piperock, from near Skiag Bridge, Assynt, in north-west Scotland. It is of Cambrian age (around 500 million years ago) and is a quartz sandstone with the fossil marks of worm burrows (trace fossils). The round circles on the upper surface are the openings on the burrows on the ancient surface of the sand. The U shaped burrows were infilled with sand and buried before they could be destroyed. The match is 4cm long, to give you some idea of scale. This is the horizontal surface, if you look at the vertical section, you can see how the burrow traces go down into the sand. This is a simple fossil, but it illustrates what I love about Earth Science. It took me many shots to get the angles and the light exactly correct. Hope you like it!