“...(3 million YO and NOT fossilized?)....”
In Hill County, Montana, in 1989, I pulled a mussel shell out of the wall of a coulee. The sediments in which I found the shell were of late Cretaceous age, somewhere around 65-70 million years. The shell wasn’t fossilized at all...it looked like I had just plucked it right out of a creek. The mother-of-pearl was clear and beautiful.
http://www.maine.gov/doc/nrimc/mgs/explore/surficial/facts/oct00-5c.htm
An example of a fossilized shell.
http://www.maine.gov/doc/nrimc/mgs/explore/surficial/facts/oct00.htm
Personally, I think if I found this, I would not know if the shell was a fossil or not...