Fossils in the floors

Fossils in the floors

Anyone of you strolling through the historic center of many cities or examining carefully the floor of some buildings, have certainly noticed the presence of numerous fossils, including several species of ammonites and nautilus-like large snails with diameters down to twenty or thirty centimeters, belemnites, shaped very long and slender; shells of molluscs, very similar to specimens present (among which stands out as the jacobeus Pecten or scallop); and finally - though much more rare - corals and crinoids, of which the current urchins and sea stars are distant descendants.

Given the great beauty of most of these fossils, such as the beautiful ammonite - about ten inches in diameter and with internal septums perfectly preserved - visible in the limestone steps of the seventeenth-century red ammonitico Neptune fountain in the square of Bologna (pictured above left), carefully choosing natural stone for floors and walls of our house we can not just take a trip back in time hundreds of millions of years, but most get really interesting aesthetic effects.

Stones from fossil

In fact there are some varieties of natural stone (obviously of sedimentary origin) in which the fossils are so common as to make them especially popular for this very special feature.


It 's the case with the so-called Great Fossil Marble, limestone (remember that fact in the trade jargon common in Italian marble with the term refers to any ornamental stone that can be polished, with the exception of only porphyries, gabbros and granites, namely the volcanic rocks) of gray color with red veins imported from Morocco, where many fossils of ammonites and belemnites - perfectly preserved in every detail - are colored white and are therefore very obvious. It is a very precious stone, for example, marketed by the company Payanini and particularly suitable for the execution of floors and coverings, stairs, fountains, furniture (table tops and kitchens tops) and bathroom fixtures (sinks and shower trays).

Another stone is particularly remarkable, again of Moroccan origin, is the so-called Fossil Black (marketed for example by the firm Marmi ZEN di Enrico Ziche), literally dotted with beautiful tapered shellfish - most likely belemnites - perfectly preserved in every minute detail, which stand out in white on a background of a deep black, as if to evoke the abyss of a primordial sea.

Far more common and cheaper (albeit good-looking) is instead the ammonitic limestone, a stone of a nodular appearance and coloration, depending on the case and minerals, can be white, pink, red (this is perhaps the variety mostly widespread and common, known as Red marble of Verona), purple or even green.
In these cases - as the name suggests - the most common fossils are made once again by the ammonites, generally small (5 to 10 cm); although in some cases there is no lack of real colossus, such as an ammonite of about 50 centimeters in diameter (unfortunately cut in half and not polished, and therefore not particularly valuable from an aesthetic point of view) visible in the facade of the Ferrara Cathedral, or a second copy slightly smaller embedded in a sidewalk in Modena.
So, with a little luck - or if we can personally choose the slabs at our dealer - we can find some nice fossil to make absolutely special our beautiful floor.

Floors with artificial fossils

There are also some products - defined in a rather risky way artificial fossils - which, while clearly man-made, still want to be inspired by the world of fossils.



This is what the Studio Adam Art of Telese Terme (BN) proposes. They specialize in the creation of mosaics and stained glass, which has created a series of decorative panels in which mortar background (which wants to simulate the stone matrix in which they are the ancient fossilized marine organisms) are embedded small pieces of colored glass arranged so as to suggest the presence of fish fossils and ammonites.

The company Interstore in Montichiari (Brescia) markets single-fired glazed ceramic tile with a matt finish, size 33x33 cm, available in green and terracotta color, the shapes on the surface appear slightly raised and deliberately confusing (in order to suggest the inevitable imperfections of the process of fossilization) of some ammonite fossils and shells like scallops.