Most people comb the beach for shells, driftwood and sea glass. Barrington resident Ron Russo found something a bit more valuable on Barrington Beach last summer.  

Mr. Russo, who often walks the beach on nice summer afternoons, came across a fossil estimated by geologists to be more than 350 million years old. In fact, he found two such fossils.

"It was a hot day so I stopped to rest on an outcrop of rocks and looked down. I sat on a boulder and saw a piece that had fallen off. I picked it up and saw what looked like an imprint of a fern on both sides,” he said.

Mr. Russo, a design engineer of medical devices, did some research and found out that the fragment is from the Carboniferous period, "the age of plants." 

According to the website fossilmuseum.net a major marine and extinction event, the Carboniferous rainforest collapse, occurred in the middle of the period and was caused by climate change. The latter half of the period experienced glaciations, low sea level and mountain building as the continents collided to form Pangaea.
Calamites and ferns were spore-bearing plants that thrived during the Carboniferous period.

“This is basically a time capsule of what it was like at this spot 350 million years ago before this continent was formed,” he said.

The area was long ago swamp land with ferns and other thriving vegetation.
“It’s very rare to find something like this and who knew that I passed by it for years on my beach walks,” he said.

Mr. Russo has kept his rare findings but is considering donating them to preservationists or for science purposes.