Making a Fossil Necklace

Last week at one of my favorite Lake Erie beaches, I found this really interesting little dark grey beach stone. It must be a fossil of some sort. Look closely and you can see a tiny texture all over it.

UPDATE: I have done some research and this appears to be a "favosite" fossil. Favosite is an older cousin to the Petoskey Stone found only in Northern Michigan. It is a long extinct coral composed of polygonal to slightly rounded shaped tiny marine animals. When our area was closer to the equator, they grew in the shallow tropical waters some 400-385 million years ago. (The Lower Devonian geologic period, for you geology buffs.) The closely adjoined colonies give the formation a honeycomb-like appearance and are somewhat rare. Might also be called a Charlevoix Stone.

So I decided it needed to be the focus of a new necklace. My studio is kind of dark, so I have difficulty photographing my process, but I thought I'd try to show you a few steps along the way as I made this piece today.