A child finds a 488-million-year-old fossil in his garden

Photo from Asharq Al-Awsat

A six-year-old boy found a fossil dating back millions of years in his garden after receiving a fossil hunting kit for Christmas.

According to the British "BBC" website.

A friend of Singh Jamat, better known as Syed, said he was "excited" to find the fossil in the garden of his home in the Walsall industrial area, west of the Midlands in England, after he was digging for worms.

Singh's father was able to learn about the fossil, which is the remains of an ancient coral reef, through a group interested in fossils. He joined its membership on the social networking site "Facebook."

Singh, who estimated the age of the fossil to be between 251 and 488 million years, said, “I was just digging for worms and things like pottery and bricks. Of coral, which is called the coral horn. I felt overjoyed after I became certain of its truth. "

"We were surprised that he (his son) found something very strange in the soil ... he found a coral horn and some small pieces next to it," added Singh the father. 

The next day he went to dig again and found a frozen sand mass.

There were a lot of small mollusks and seashells, and something called a krenoid, which looks like squid tentacles, so it is a prehistoric creature. "

Singh added that the fossil marks mean that it is likely to be a "coral Rogoza," and it is estimated that it is between 251 to 488 million years old, as "the period dating back to between 251 - 500 million years is called the Paleozoic Era."

It is worth noting that "England at that time was part of Pangea, a mass of land that includes several continents. All of England was also underwater, and that was in ancient times."

The Singh family said they did not live in an area known to be rich in fossils, such as the Jurassic coast in southern England, and yet they found fossils in their garden in the mud.

"A lot of people commented on how wonderful it was to find something in the backyard of the house," Singh said.

"They say you can find fossils anywhere if you look carefully," he concluded, "but finding such a large piece is really unique."