does anyone know anything about sand dollar fossils?

Question

we live in alabama in the central eastern section and a sand dollar fossil we found and was wondering if it might be very old

Answer 1

I got one in Virginia

Answer 2

This site, from San Francisco State,called Biogeography of the Western sand dollar, gives some good drawings of various types of echinoids through time. This may help you identify the most likely age of your fossil.
http://bss.sfsu.edu/holzman/courses/Fall02%20projects/sandollar/sanddollar.html
I found references to Cretaceous, Paleocene, Eocene, Miocene echinoids in Alabama, but true 'sand dollars' did not appear in the fossil record until the Paleocene (post 65 million years ago).
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/echinodermata/echinoidea.html

The following USGS map shows a highly simplified version of the geologic ages of the basement rocks in Alabama. It also might help you identify the age of your fossil.
http://tapestry.usgs.gov/states/alabama.html

Answer 3

I think these are a kind of sea urchin, so anything up to about 500 million years, it depends when that area was under the sea. It could have flooded many times. A local museum or college may be able to help you. What a great find though!! I'm envious.

Answer 4

Do you know what layer of rock you got it from? That's probably the key to finding out it's age, as geologists probably would have already named the rock formations and have approximate ages for them - as the other answerers have said, your local museum may be able to help, or any university in the area if you contact someone from the geology department that could be even better - they'd probably be happy to help and would be pretty familiar with the local geology as they probably get there students to study it while they're learning!

Answer 5

take it to your local museum they'll help you.