Heat treated coral

newnan man

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A few brokes that I found in the 80's. If whole, they would have been beautiful points. Heat treated material, Coral. A spiral shell inclusion at the break actually has tiny crystals in it.
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I really like that material Nman. I have always liked Deep South Artifacts. If they weren’t so expensive I would have more than the one Frame that I do have buried somewhere in my rathole8-)
 

I’ve knapped a little bit of coral. Some of it is really colorful when heated. Once heated, it’s easy to knap. I got some nodules right out of the gulf on Honeymoon Island. It’s dark blue/black colored. I was told the sea water turns it dark blue. I’m not sure if that’s true. This is from Honeymoon.
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I've got several chunks of heat treated coral that I found in Pasco County. They have already been worked over and what I found were pieces not suitable for knapping. A lot of rind but great colors on the coral still attached.
 

Broken, but still really interesting to see the detail, especially the crystals in the shell.
 

Interesting makes me wonder why there isn’t fossil coral here in Kansas, the surface rocks around here were from a shallow sea and range anywhere from deep water to on shore deposits, you’d think there would be a coral in there somewhere
 

Interesting makes me wonder why there isn’t fossil coral here in Kansas, the surface rocks around here were from a shallow sea and range anywhere from deep water to on shore deposits, you’d think there would be a coral in there somewhere
That’s a good question and applies to me in IL also. Coral goes way back to the Cambrian 500 mil yrs ago. The coral in FL is more recent and is Cretaceous in age. There are only two tiny areas of Cretaceous in IL so I can see why we don’t have FL type coral. Looking at a geological map of KS, you have Cretaceous deposits in the north central part of the state. The green colors are Cretaceous. That’s where any coral similar to FL coral would be found.
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I find a few coral fossils in the glacial till in IL. I’ve never found any coral that was knappable like in FL. The difference is that FL coral is agatized. That’s what allows it to be knapped. I’m thinking the same would be true in KS.
 

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