Did I just find a fossil?

Just get a pet mammoth.

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/14/1036884561/dna-resurrection-jurassic-park-woolly-mammoth

 

Whoa. That'd be pretty cool if it was a fossil. Grab a shovel next time and dig it up?

 

4-6000 years old? That's it? Not me. When I saw the huge signs that said the mountains in Wyoming are 50+ million years old, I tended to believe it.

 

Yep. same. I was taught by certain institutions that this was not the case. And lots of others around me. Some people take it to the extreme and blame a certain cosmic power for planting dinosaur bones to trick us.

 

Those who endorse folklore over science often have to jump through hoops to reconcile their beliefs with the same. I don't deny anyone their beliefs, nor question them, but at some point you have to be willing to let facts be the basis of reality.

 

Absolutely. I have one person I consider a close friend who believes this way. And quite a few people I am acquainted with.

There are two ways to handle new information that is verifiable, that contradicts you have been taught: Deny and explain away, or change/adapt your belief.

I’m sure there are people on this site that believe this way. So I’ll stop here, to avoid a future pointless and fruitless argument. I’ll just say that Geology 101 was a true eye opener for me, at age 18-19 or so.

 

There's gold in them thar hills!

I was hiking around 3500 feet in AZ, at the top of a mountain ridge. Realized that the rock formations at the top were water carved. Astounding.

Even more interesting... as I drove into Arizona on Rt 40 from New Mexico... you're up around 7500'+ elevation. The high plains. On either side of the roadway, you can see the rock formations smoothly carved in flowing shapes. There are giant half-spherical openings 60' or more high. Like someone cut a giant basketball in half and you're looking inside it. Took me a little while to realize that they were water-carved swirl-holes from some giant flow, eons ago. At 7500 feet.

 

It is truly amazing. Really emphasizes how young we really are compared to this whole planet. And this planet is a baby compared to the universe as a whole. It’s a perspective changer, when you’re brought up to believe the universe revolves around your own species.

 

From the pic you took, it does resemble vertebrae, but the smaller parallel line makes me suspect. I'd have to hold it to have a better chance to give what may or may not be a less wrong answer.

 

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+1 quartz vein through granite.

If a fossil then the rock would have to be sedementarian.

Bring a metal detector next time and find the gold.

.

 

I've never heard of fossils in granite before. I'm thinking t's just a cool rock formation.

 

Those are fossilized brachiopod shells. They were clam or scallop-like mollusks that lived on the sea floor. There were a bazillion kinds and they're plentiful all over the world. Back in Indiana I was caretaker of a woods that had a creek with stone slabs of these, like 6 foot wide slabs with thousands and thousands of these layered on top of each other. That's the way they lived and died.

Here ya go:
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=spell+brachiopod&iax=images&ia=images

 

I'm here among you.

(In reference to the former.)

 

This is joke, right?

 

Yeah, Eastern foothills south of Mammoth there ain't no fluid rock. Mt Gabb on South to Whitney and beyond formed completely underground. It's magma that slowly cooled into granite composites underneath the native rock, and then was thrust up through it by the SNGV block fault system. If you look at videos of the summits of Whitney and Mammoth, they are totally different. Whitney is giant slabs of granite, while Mammoth is a big pile of volcanic rock that's tens of millions of years younger. When the granite cracks underground, it's filled in with magmatic water that's forced up from even deeper that has minerals dissolved in it that come out of solution as it cools. At least that's what I remember of it. It was required family learning when I was a kid from my grandmother, whose cousin was a climber and photographer and did a bunch of books on the Sierras. We need a resident geologist to set the record straight.

 

Nope. I live within a few hours of the attraction.

 

My folks live near the Florissant Fossil Beds National Park. As the name implies, the area is silly with fossils everywhere. Go for a hike, find a hillside you can dig into, and they're everywhere.

I've found dozens of fossilized things around, mostly leaves and plants and insects.

https://www.nps.gov/flfo/index.htm