Fossilized Snail - Polished Specimen

Hand cut and polished half of a fossilized snail.

Once this snail was living in an ancient ocean about 80 million years ago but when it died, it sank to the bottom of the ocean and was buried under sand and mud.
Over the course of several thousand years, the snails shell was fossilized and became the beautiful fossil that we can see today.

These snail fossils are also called Gosau-snail, named after the small village of Gosau am Dachstein in Austria.
The village is known for its fossils as a part of the ancient ocean got lifted up during the rising of the Alps and now sits at about 1.200m above sea level and contains many snail, coral and shell fossils.

Please note that this piece was made from a natural fossil and may have some flaws. This is normal as nothing in nature is really perfect but that also makes every piece even more unique.