I have long been an avid fossil collector. This image represents a combination of two of my favorite things...fossils and 3d design. Originally designed for an on-line contest, this image took second place. Since then, it has developed a life of its own, even appearing in a variant form in a production by the Travel Channel in a segment on the U-Dig fossil quarry near Delta, Utah.

This is an image that depicts the life-and-death struggle that occurred eons ago in a warm, shallow sea that extended from Ohio across through Indiana and Illinois and down into northern Georgia. Collectively known as the Cincinnatian series, these deposits were formed during the Ordovician era. Some of the chief fossils seen in these strata are represented here...a crinoid (an echinoderm, related to starfish that lived its life very much like a plant--anchored to one place and filtering food out of the water), a horn coral (an extinct variety of coral that formed one large, stony cup per polyp), a bryozoan (a colony of very small organisms), a brachiopod (an invertebrate not at all related to clams yet which has a clam-like shell), a straight-shelled nautiloid (a cephalopod related to squid and octopus that secreted a straight shell to house itself in, much like the Nautilus of today), and two trilobites of the genus Flexicalymene. One is enrolled in a defensive posture hopefully to defend itself against the onslaught of the predatory nautiloid. The other, further away from the danger zone, is attempting to scurry to safety.

Designed in LightWave 3d, this image was created using my Surface Effectors plugin to provide the texture on the nautiloid's body.