Please help me identify an object found on a North Wales beach

[Anonymouse2019]

Very recently we found this object on a beach in North Wales. We brought it home (I know we shouldn't really). The more we look at it, the more interested we become.

I'll post some photos from different angles. It's just over 10cm long but only weighs 35g.

Does anyone know what it might be? We've tried numerous Google Lens searches which is fascinating and thrown up alsorts of possibilities like Viking tools, but at only 35g it can't really be metal I'm assuming.

It's probably wood, very old wood, but why is it black and could it be from something intriguing like a shipwreck? How could we even try to find out? Is there a company who can take a sample to analyse it, and would it even be worth it?

So many (mostly rhetorical) questions!

I'd guess at something from a ship. There are a lot of wrecks round the coast so it could be really old wood.

Any help here?

http://earthsci.org/expeditions/fossil_shapes/fossil_shapes.html

Axe head is my guess

Charred wood from a beach bonfire, on our local beach people (twats) rip bits of wooden fencing there to protect the dunes and burn it when they have parties on the beach.

Sorry I missed it was wooden. I'd just guess that it's a random bit of wood in that case....

It could be a petrified piece of wood.

Is it definitely wood and not coal? In coal-bearing costal areas coal washes up on the beaches all the time.

I don't know if it's wood. It could be coal but doesn't leave any marks on handling or where it has touched other surfaces etc. It looks rough but it's very smooth. It's actually quite beautiful, even if it's a bit of rubbish!

Put the photos on Twitter with the info- size, weight, feel, where found- and hashtag the post #fossils and #Geology and ask for help with identification.

I often do that and get loads of help

Reddit also has a fossils sub and they are absolute experts.

Get in touch with the archaeology department at the nearest museum to where you found it. Failing that try the universities- North Wales would probably be Bangor or Chester

Anywhere near Borth?

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/stunning-ancient-forest-welsh-beach-16309498

One of the Chester archeology professors is on tiktok. @ archaeodeath

make a video and tag him?

Fossilised jobby

Looks like sea coal to me (I’m a former archaeologist)

You need to join the NHM UK biodiversity group on Facebook. There is literally nothing they can’t identify down to the littlest known fungi or fossil or bone.

😂

My guess too. I often see lumps of it when I'm on the beach.

www.alamy.com/sea-coal-beachcombed-in-suffolk-image417876514.html

I think it could be sea coal. There are people who collect it for fuel.

There is something lurking at the back of my mind. I've handled something like it. Wood, but not fossilised as stone, more like resin, which could happen, like amber. If you rub it with silk or wool, does it gt charged and pick up small bits of paper, or attract hair?

This thread has brought back a long forgotten memory of a school picnic on the beach when the teachers made a sea coal fire to roast potatoes

Sea coal

Jet?

If it’s very lightweight as you say, probs seacoal as opposed to actual wood.

I'd go along with jet, there's a good page about it here.
https://www.whitbyjet.co.uk/about-jet-read-more
Wrong side of Britain, though.

It’s a mini Oumuamua 😂