Paramoudras, paramoudra flints, pot stones or potstones are

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and sta ...

nodules found mainly in parts of north-west Europe:

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

(United Kingdom),

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and

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. In Norfolk they are known as pot stones and can be found on the beach below Beeston Bump just outside Beeston Regis. In Ireland they are known as paramoudras. The term paramoudras was first used by Buckland in 1817 and is a corruption of a Gaelic name, probably padhramoudras "ugly Paddies" or peura muireach "sea pears". Pot stones are flint nodules with a hollow center and have the appearance of a doughnut (

torus In geometry, a torus (plural tori, colloquially donut or doughnut) is a surface of revolution generated by revolving a circle in three-dimensional space about an axis that is coplanar with the circle. If the axis of revolution does not tou ...

). They can be found in columns resembling a

backbone The backbone is the vertebral column of a vertebrate. Arts, entertainment, and media Film * ''Backbone'' (1923 film), a 1923 lost silent film starring Alfred Lunt * ''Backbone'' (1975 film), a 1975 Yugoslavian drama directed by Vlatko Gilić ...

. These flints are

trace fossil A trace fossil, also known as an ichnofossil (; from el, ἴχνος ''ikhnos'' "trace, track"), is a fossil record of biological activity but not the preserved remains of the plant or animal itself. Trace fossils contrast with body fossils, ...

s of the burrows of an organism otherwise unknown except for these relics sometimes referred to as '' Bathicnus paramoudrae''.

Notes

External links

* geography,or
Paramoudra on chalk outcrop''
* Aranzadi Science Society - Sociedad de Ciencias Aranzad
Paramoudras en arenisca de la Formación Jaizkibel''
{{geology-stub Geography of Norfolk Trace fossils