On my last visit to France, I visited the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial.
At the horseshoe shaped memorial, I found the remains of marine fossils in the limestone plates on the west face of the north loggia and the steps there. One plates with the carved text, I found what looks like the cross sections of crinoids.
Reading a
2002 document about the cemetery from The American Battle Monuments Commission, "The loggias and colonnade are of Vaurion, a French limestone from the Cote d'Or region; the plinths and steps are of Ploumanach granite from Brittany." The limestone might date to the Jurassic Period (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%B4te_d%27Or_(escarpment). I found a reference in a historic building stone book that Vaurion limestone might also be called Marssangis (
http://www.geostonesrl.com/english/stones/other/massangis-clair-nuance/). This stone dates to the Jurassic.
Then images below are of maybe fossilized gastropods or ammonites:
The Great Seal of the United States in next to the carved text. The top shows the Eye of Providence with the text
Annuit cœptis Latin for "has favored our undertakings". Under that is the 13 layer pyramid representing the original 13 colonies with the bottom layer showing 1776 in Roman numerals for the year of the Declaration of Independence. Novus ordo seclorum from the Roman poet Virgil translated to "a new order for the ages". Learn more here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Seal_of_the_United_States
