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Hi everyone this is Matt again. Can anyone tell me what this coral is that I found today in the creek ? Here is a photo of the coral :

I’m really new to fossil identification but my nearly eight year old grandson’s recent passion has sparked my interest and we have been going through some of my beach stone pick ups I’ve always picked up interesting looking (or interesting feeling)stones and what I thought were shells- turns out I have quite a few fossils. The flint photos below were found on Whitstable Beach in Kent England. I joked and called them witches fingers but now I’m wondering… are there crinoids on the surface or just marks. The second stone I can remember one of the grandkids giving to me as it looked like a bird it is probably from Whitley Bay or Roker beaches in Tyne & Wear England I wondered again about a fossil either sponge or coral. From what I’ve read I’m assuming the 3rd stone is a sponge? Again just picked up and pocketed as it felt nice and looked different. These are just a few of my finds, it’s amazing what you can find when you are not looking. thank you for any help you can provide.

Hi everyone this is Matt again. Guess what I just found again? Another favosites fossil ! Here is a photo of the fossil :

Hi everyone this is Matthew again. Can anyone tell me what kind of coral/sponge this could be ? I found it in the creek today and I have no clue what it is. Here are a few photos:

I pulled this out of the Mahantango Formation of Pennsylvania a couple weeks ago. It's middle Devonain. TI though as I pulled it out of the scree that it was more of the myriad corals, but looking at it more closely it is most certainly not (although there are a couple Rugosa tucked in there), the structure is all wrong. I was told by one sponge enthusiast that it is definitely sponge. some kind of sponge. I'm a taxonomist at heart, and it drives me nuts if I can't at least narrow something down to a family. The literature on porifera is woefully scant, especially on this coast. Looking at the steinkerns in the holes, it looks like a network of narrow tubes rather than the pores of one big sponge wall. Could this be Amphiporidae? Anyone have any good references?

Hi everyone, this is Matt again. Take a look at this fossil full of corals I found in this rock today. Here are some pics of the fossil:

Hi everyone this is Matt again. Today in the creek I found this cool Favosites coral fossil. Here are some photos :

Hi everyone this is matt again. Today in the creek I found a neat fossil with a few cool corals in it. Here are a few photos of the fossil:

Have you ever heard of Petrified Flame Sponge from Wyoming? I just bought (in the mail) the below piece because I want to look at it under a microscope and I think I can take some interesting pictures of it. It is supposed to be from the White River Formation in Wyoming. See the below cards with it. Marine from the White River Formation doesn’t make sense to me. Fluvial would, but not for sponges. Tsunami in Wyoming also doesn’t make sense. Reworked from older Formation? Ideas on what this is? Just a name for a type of agate? Petrified Flame Sponge Slab, Late Eocene/Early Oligocene White River Formation, Wyoming (66 grams 3.5 inches x 6.2 mm thick): Marco Sr.

Hello! its my first time writing in this forum. i am from Germany and usuals discuss my findings in a German forum. But this time no one was able to identify my new fossil. it was found at the cost of the Baltic Sea in northern Germany. (You can expect fossils from every age, because of the ice age) You can see a sponge like structure with some big channels. It seems that the sponge like structure was once covered from some kind of “skin” as you can see in the pictures. the fossil measures 10“ x 4,7“ (25cm x 11cm) and seems to be heavy as a normal rock. in a German forum it was discussed if it could be some part of a big bone or rather some kind of sponge. hopefully some one of you does know the answer. please excuse my bad English and have a nice day! yannick

This was found on a gravel bar in the Trinity River in Arlington, Texas. From the color I'm guessing it is Cretaceous in age, but I've been told that the river tends to import rocks from a great distance, and Paleozoic fossils do show up. It sure looks like a sponge to me.

I am supposed to identify whether this is a sponge or a coral but google is not helpful and neither is my professor. My instinct is to say colonial coral, but i would just like to be sure. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

Hi All, so I had heard about fossilized coral located in the Western Arizona desert near the Colorado River. So we went out there and did some rock prospecting ourselves. The location is La Paz, County south of Parker, Arizona. Namely, the terminal moraine-like hills about 10 miles south-east of Parker, Arizona beyond the Colorado River Indian Reservation. We found a ton of very interesting sponge or coral-like rocks on top of these hills. So this is consistent with a few other reports online about this. First, let me describe this location as it’s somewhat fascinating if you pay special attention. Parker is located next to the Colorado River south of Lake Havasu, Arizona. As you travel southeast of Parker on Highway 95, you will begin to gently gain 100-150 ft in elevation as the Highway climbs through a gentle alluvial fan formation for about 4-8 miles. Then you will begin to see some very odd elongated, east-west sand hills maybe 50-100 ft tall. You won’t think anything of them until you look at an aerial photograph and realize they seem like giant terminal moraines. They’re extremely consistent in shape and placement, like giant wave ripples. We sampled several of these terminal moraine hills. Per geological maps, these moraine hills are composed of an unconformity of top Bullhead Alluvium coating over the below Bouse deposit mounds. You can clearly see this from a few, open cross-sections of these hills, where most of the hill is composed of a sandy material then very oddly layered with a top layer of dense rocks (1/2 inch up to 6 inch size rocks). Now that’s kind of odd. A series of sandy hills composed with a coating of heavy and dense deposits on top? And more interesting is the model where the present day Colorado River may have been formed when a series of lakes formed, filled up, breached and flooded to create subsequent downstream lakes. At this location an ancient Lake Blythe would have formed from presumably a catastrophic flood from a breach of an upper ancient Lake Havasu or ancient Lake Mohave. Think about it, that would probably explain these odd terminal moraine hills with a unconformity of large gravel rocks on top! Wow. It’s anyone’s guess but it sure does seem plausible. So we sampled these hills for several days. Their top gravels are composed of a variety of rocks. But what’s odd is that many sponge or coral like rocks seem to exist in this top layer of Bullhead Alluvium. These have the same appearance as those described downstream in Yuma on this forum. Also, when we were in Lake Havasu City, we found the exact same sponge and coral like rocks there, too. So at least from Yuma to Lake Havasu City and maybe much further beyond. One must wonder where they originated. The Grand Canyon, other canyons, ancient flat areas around the present day Colorado River? But they seem to be very present in presumably flood gravels. There appear to be some different types. Some are coated and show massive eroded pits and areas exposing their mostly gray cores. By coated, the entire specimen is surrounded by a coating(s), so I don’t believe it’s a piece of a eroded deposit layer from a nearby cliff from a flood, etc. Many have elongated shapes, wide on one end and narrow on the other end. Others are gray core matter only, some showing a bit of coating or not, and their cores show very curious patterns that look very sponge or coral like in nature. Their internal patterns seem biological in nature and marine like and can be seen within some of the partially-eroded coated pieces. We also found some gravel rocks with small crinoid fossils and a few specimens that looked like large coral heads. All of these specimens are highly weathered, consistent if they were part of a massive flood deposit. It’s very cool stuff. It’s everywhere in these Bullhead Alluvium flood gravels. It’s so prevalent, I’ve got to wonder if anything specifically has ever been written about it? Granted it was only a few years ago that evidence was uncovered that may indicate that the lower Colorado River area was once an inland sea estuary during the Miocene to Pliocene, before final formation of the modern day Colorado River presumably from a series of breaches. So it begs to wonder what other treasures this area may hold. I attached pictures of some of the sponge and coral like specimens. Size scale shown is in inches. Comments welcome. Cheers, DJ

Hi All, any thoughts on these specimens? Location is Roberts Mesa in Gila County, Arizona. (east of Payson) The red coral-like stems were found loosely on the ground very near the red trunk and gray matrix pieces. So I’m making some assumptions that the two are related as they were found maybe within 100 meters of one another. And the red stems above looked similar to the red trunks below of course. My first thoughts are some sort of coral but could they be a sponge instead? I’m assuming all are Naco Formation? Comments welcome. Photo size reference is in inches. cheers, DJ

Hi guys! I was in the Warsaw Geological Museum and there I came across this specimen which reminded me of Tabulate coral, but it was signed as a "sponge"... The sponge from the "maastrichtian age", when Tabulata already was extinct. I couldn't be more confused. This one still looks like coral to me. What do you think?

Found in Muskogee, Ok near the Arkansas river. I originally thought this was just a piece of rhyolite the pink popping through the light gray caught my eye. Thinking its a rock we cut it ooen. Thats when I noticed some patterns and vivid colors and decided to remove the matrix which was pretty fragile. This is what I have uncovered so far. I am thinking this is a type of sponge either a Solenopora or a Stromatoporoidea. And thank you for any help.

My 13 year old son found this at the beach in Destin, FL. It reminds me of a tooth, but it's not pointed. Any ideas of what this is?

I wonder if this rock from very late Ordovicium in the Oslo field, Norway, shows an alge or a sponge? The rock was bigger originally with 4 bumps of equal size, 3-4 cm away from each other, but 3 of them had very unclear surface pattern, so I chopped away that part, showing here the rest. Another fossile from the same formation, 500 meters away (the structure about 3 cm in diameter):

Hi! Today I was going through my fossils that I found on beach in Gdynia Orłowo and I found these ones. Are they sponges, corals or something else?

Hi everyone this is Matt again. Today in the creek, I found this strange fossil - I don't know what kind it is. Here are a few photos :

Can anyone tell me what this species of coral is? It's from the Thornloe Formation in Northern Ontario, and is of early Silurian age.

Hi everyone this is Matt again Take a look at this favosites coral fossil I found in the creek today. Here is a photo of the fossil: