Found While Grouse Hunting

[T Vernon]

Found this fossil at +9,000 ft in elevation. I love to hunt fossils and rock hound but am still not 100% sure of the ID of this one. I won't try and guess I will just ask if you know the name.
Thank you,
Travis

 

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[bakergeol]

Great specimen. Quite impressive. Fossil corals but I think you already knew this. Can't help you on the exact name. Would probably need geologic age and location.

Great find
George

 

[lamplighter36]

travis,
i found what appeared to be tubes like yours last weekend. mine were exposed in an excavation site, and very very brittle (really made of compacted sand) i first thought...geez this is a lightening strike reminant in the sand, but then there were hundres of them. now im thinking root remains. the thought of coral or tube type works...but then there is now other evidence of fossil material in that layer (like yours) and it's a little shallow for that kind of age.

the pics arent the greatest...but you get the idea.

Who on this forum can help me and travis out?

thanks!
thomas

 

[futzman]

Thomas those are rugose corals I believe. The one Travis found appears to be a tabulate coral which is very closely related to the rugose corals but were colonial. The rugose corals are quite interesting in that they are now extinct having been decimated in the Permian-Triassic extinction (after having survived for tens of millions of years). Just recently they found a 300 mile diameter meteor crater in the Antartic that scientists believe may have caused the Permian extinction event (that wiped out about 95% of life on Earth).

 

[lamplighter36]

Futz,

Thanks! totally awsome. acording to your ID they should be quite old, but i didnt see any mioce/pleisto layer above them. guessing this coral layer was about 15 feet below present. found in NE florida. hmmmm......

how about you take a look at some of my other stuff?

thanks again,
thomas

 

[futzman]

Sure, no problem. Btw lightning strike fusions are called "fulgurites". I've never found one myself but would like to find one!

Rugose corals are from about 250 million to in excess of 400 million years old. I'm not sure of the exact cutoff. Bakergeol will probably know right off the top of his head! Another interesting thing about rugose (otherwise known as horn corals) are that some can be used as clocks to measure the number of days in a year millions of years ago. For example, in the Devonion period rugose coral growth rings indicate that the number of days per year was about 400 (verus 365 today) demonstrating that the days were, in fact, shorter because the Earth's spin a bit faster (because the Earth was younger).