Lost in Time 1/10 (1/1)

Age: 100-105 million years (Lower Cretaceous)

This striking piece of rock from the Pénzeskúti Formation in Southeast Hungary is over 100 million years old.
Notice the small spiral-like form —it's a fossilized ammonite, a creature from ancient seas. Ammonites were marine mollusks with spiral shells, relatives of squid and octopuses, which thrived in oceans worldwide from the Devonian through the Cretaceous period. They went extinct along with the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.
The enclosing rock is marl, a blend of lime and clay sediments that accumulated in a shallow, tropical sea at the nascent stage of the European continent's formation, ultimately solidifying into rock and preserving this tiny creature for us.