Help appraise and identify my family rock?

Hey guys, I decided to take some pictures of this "family" rock that has been floating around my house for decades, since I was little, that my Mother found hiking up top of one of the mountains in the Catskills.

As a child (even now), I've always been amazed by this rock because of all the interesting imprints: seashells are the most identifiable, but there are many many weird and interesting shaped imprints as well as what appears to be different colored/textured things stuck inside the rock itself. I have no idea what this is, how old it is, if it's worth anything at all or where to go to find any of that out. So I decided to put it up here first, for all of you to take a look at how cool this thing really is.

So without further delay:










Snazzy slideshow: s907.photobucket.com...

It's beautiful
Looks like a type of fossiliferous limestone. I have one similar, but the matrix of surrounding stone has a greenish tint.
Here are some other pics.
www.google.com... h=675

Check to see if it's magnetic. It might be a meteorite, and if it is it could be worth a lot of money. I wish I had a meteorite like that. Nice family stone there though! Please let us know what it is.

Edit: If it's not magnetic, than it is just a rock with shell fossils in it, but still very nice. Looks like those shells were very small. Interesting, and thank you for sharing.

The reason I said to check if it is magnetic is because it looks kind of rusty like some meteorites do.

reply to post by InFriNiTee


I wish it was! Not magnetic sadly... Still cool though! Anyone have an idea as to how old it could possibly be?

seems like the area's full of them from about 395 million years ago and newer - www.thefossilforum.com.../topic/14606-fossil-hunting-in-the-catskills/ so probably not that rare or worth much but still very interesting

I think I found some like that in Colorado one time. I wonder what else you might find out there?

I know next to nothing about rocks, but from what I see I think this would be some type of sedimentary rock, since it seems to be layered. Plus, there are imprints of what look like shells on some parts of the surface. Is the rock carved by any chance, or can you not tell? I am just wondering if any of those imprints or markings were carved into the rock, or if they were the result of some natural processes. It does look interesting though.

I had a very similar specimen in my rock collection.
It's a conglomerate fossil. A bunch of different things held together by a matrix of sedimentary stone.
The surrounding matrix is most likely shale.

Nothing appears to be carved at all. It does look all natural, but all the valleys and holes are quite cool looking. Rock was found while hiking off the beaten path. Cool part about it was it wasn't found in an old river bed, but at the top of the mountain. Must be pretty old!

It's clear that there are things embedded and fossilized in the middle of it, looks different than the rock itself in texture and color, wish there was a way to find out exactly what was inside without destroying the thing