It would be entirely fair to say Dale Rogers’ life changed at 24 years old. It was then, sitting in the cafe of an antique emporium in Morocco, that he noticed that the black stone tabletop in front of him was embedded with immaculately fossilized sea creatures in their shells. Rogers, who had no prior interest in geology or natural history bought a handful of the fossils “for nothing” and proceeded to travel around the country in search of their source.

Cut to 30 years later and the London-based Rogers is the proprietor of one of the most extraordinary shops in the world. Dale Rogers Ammonite is full of museum-quality ammonites — the term used for a group of squidlike predators that lived inside coiled shells 65 to 240 million years ago and ranged in size from hand-held tiny to nearly seven feet across. The store features huge displays of intricately swirling shells piled against one another; dazzling chunks of lapus lazuli, rose quartz and citrine, mounted like contemporary sculptures; tapering columns of amethyst stretch to the ceiling; dinosaur skulls and whale jaws hang overhead; and fossilized skeletons of reptiles and fish.