FOSSIL BIVALVE, VENERICOR, EOCENE (Approx. 45 million years old)

The shell is approximately 6.8 cm x 6.4 cm x 2 cm and it represents one half only of the original bivalve shell.

Venericor lived in large colonies and fed by filtering water to extract small particles, during this geological period it could be found in shallow waters buried within a sandy seabed. This fossil was found in the Bracklesham Group of sediments (clays and marls), being preserved within fine sediment allows for exceptional levels of fossilisation and near perfect detail can be observed. Sediments were deposited during the Lutetian stage of the Eocene epoch, at which point this whole area was a large sub-tropical estuary flowing into the North Sea.