Two Fossil Clams (Mercenaria) - Ruck's Pit, FL

This is a pair of fossil clams (Mercenaria permagna) from the the famous Ruck's Pit quarry in Florida. The interior of the clam are filled with golden-yellow calcite crystals though they are only visible on the smaller clam. These crystals are highly fluorescent under both short and long-wave UV. The fossils are Early Pleistocene in age, or approximately 2 million years old.

The base of the rock has been cut flat so that it stands up nicely without the need for a display stand.

Rucks' Pit was a small cement quarry that produced some amazing crystal lined fossils during the 2000s. Around 2006, the quarry was shut down and filled in with water. While some material can still be found in tailing piles from the quarry, high quality specimens of these remarkable crystal-filled fossils are becoming hard to acquire.

A geological paper on the unique geology and fossil occurrences in Rucks' Pit can be found here.