Where is this Anchor exactly? I went down the beach today for some seaweed for the allotment but came back with sea coal instead.
Sea-coal:
Went for a walk onto the 'big shore' but the tide was starting to come in at that point. There has been a vast amount of sand taken away by the tides at the north end of the beach. Strata there now uncovered I've never seen before.
Walking around those flat areas of shales and thin coals I came across this fossil:
I found one of those years ago, probably more that 30 years ago. In front of the salt pans it was. Took some photos and wrote to the Hancock Museum for an identification and got a nice reply back with the details. Unfortunately both photos and letter have not survived.
Anyway, it's a fish spine from a primitive shark like species. There were several species at that time that had rigid spines on the dorsal fin and/or pectoral fin. I note from Fowler's book 'The Geology of the Country around
Rothbury, Amble and Ashington'
"Mr. Eckford states that in a small collection at Amble school are Gyracanthus spines, said to have been got near the base of a conglomeratic sandstone, where he himself found a fish-tooth and fragments of spines." (relating to strata near link house)
So one likely candidate is Gyracanthus.
Gyracanthus from a drawing on Wikipedia:
image licence details
This is a drawing of earlier but related
Gyracanthides showing the spines
But... I'm not sure if this is the same species. this fossil has a serrated edge to the spine:
I remember the one I found at the salt pans had a very clear serrated edge so made a point of photographing this one.
In close up it looks sort of translucent, amber like:
Anyway, which ever species it's from it's a weird and wonderful object and I'm delighted to see one again.