Fossil Fish Scales Gallery The Cretaceous era Coleraine Formation at Hill Annex Mine State Park in Calumet, Minnesota preserves fossils from the inhabitants of the Western Interior Seaway and its shores. The scales of bony fishes are rare but have survived both fossilization on the sea floor and the mining activity that brought them back to the surface. Fish scales have growth rings and these rings can be observed under a microscope. In fact, these growth rings are one thing we look for to determine if a fossil is a fish scale. The Hill Annex Mine Paleontology Project has access to advanced microscopes to image these fossils. Please enjoy what are probably the most detailed images of fossil fish scales anywhere in the world. See Also: Some American Cretaceous fish scales, with notes on the classification and distribution of Cretaceous fishes By: T.D.A. Cockerell Published 1919 A scale atlas for common Mediterranean teleost fishes December 2016 Vertebrate Zoology 66(3):275-386 Zsuzsanna Bräger Timo Moritz https://www.senckenberg.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/05_vertebrate_zoology_66-3_braeger_275-386.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311717384_A_scale_atlas_for_common_Mediterranean_teleost_fishes Wikipedia - Fish Scales Wikipedia - Fish Species in the Western Interior Seaway

Each fish scale has a high resolution images page.

Fossil Fish Scale found in 2017 #1
Fossil Fish Scale April 27, 2019 #1 Found by Patty Monson Geerts
Fossil Fish Scale April 27, 2019 #2 Found by Stephen D. Monson Geerts
Fossil Fish Scale found June 29, 2019 #1
Fossil Fish Scale found June 29, 2019 #2
Fossil Fish Scale found July 05, 2019 Note: Found by A. Braaten
Fossil Fish Scale found July 06, 2019 #1
Fossil Fish Scale found August 03, 2019 #1 Note: Two scales in same rock fragment. Found by John Westgaard.
Fossil Fish Scale found August 03, 2019 #2 Note: Surface ornamentations
Fossil Fish Scale found August 03, 2019 #3