Fossils of the Jurassic period.

Our Buried in Time exhibition includes several fine fossilised ammonites, but how much do you know about these fossils ?

Here’s a brief introduction. Ammonites are marine mollusc cephalopods famous for their spiral shells. Ammonites first appeared around 200 million years ago and lived in warm shallow waters, there was around 10,000 individual species. The larger forms were found in late Jurassic and early Cretaceous periods e.g. Titanites found in Portland Limestone was up to 53cm but they ranged up to 2.5 metres across !They became extinct 66 million years ago during a mass extinction event after an asteroid collided with Earth, which wiped out three-quarters of plant and animal species.

Our Buried in Time exhibition finishes on 30th October so if you haven’t already seen it and want to find out more about ammonites and other fossils of the Jurassic period, do pop in !