First coprolite slabs

I've probably made cabs from over 50 different materials. I never made a coprolite cab. There seems to be a wide variety of colors and patterns.

I can tell you that it is indeed coprolite. I have many thousands of specimens and my poo radar confirms the ID.

Good to hear! What do you look for that identifies it as poo?

Finished cutting it today minus a thick slab I'll need to split later.  Here's a pic of the rest of the load.  

The texture in your specimen is a dead give away. It is very similar to the coprolites from Southern Utah which were produced mostly from various hadrosaurs. The plant material they ate was mostly conifers, ferns, cycads, algae, and they had crude peg-like teeth which did not chew the food very thoroughly, hence the coarse texture of the fossil.

The presence of gastroliths within a specimen is also another clue pointing to it's identity. I've found hundreds of gastroliths (gizzard stones) embedded inside coprolites when cut open. Most do not show gastroliths, but enough do that I consider it to be common. They usually range in size from a match head to a pea, but I've found golf ball sized ones also. This in coprolites ranging from walnut to water melon sizes.

I could not discern gastroliths in your photos, but you might look closely and see one. They usually appear to be of different stone and look "out of place." They will almost always be rounded from getting tumbled.

The exterior shape and texture are also good indicators. If you imagine coarsely ground plant material falling out of a cement mixer you get the idea. Many of them are flattened on one side where they went "splat" and you can often see pebbles embedded into the flat side, just like what many farm kids see from the family milk cow dropping a load onto the gravel road. Not all of them have this shape but are more like elephant droppings ... firm, dry, and coarsely chewed.

I've also found micro remnants of coral and crustacean shells within them. I speculate the critter gulped mouth fulls of beach gravel to replenish the grit. Southeastern Utah was probably beach front property at that time with ocean toward the southeast. Laurasia had recently split into land masses of North America and Eurasia. North America was drifting North and passing through tropical latitudes at that time. My finds come out of the Morrison formation dating 146 to 156 million years ago.

Guess that's enough on a crappy subject.

Thanks Eric. That was better than telling me "you're full of crap." Haha