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I have some exciting news, thanks to the help of @TqB, who suggested that this tabulate coral I found in southwest Michigan glacial drift a few days ago is much more interesting and unusual than I could have imagined! After thinking about and dismissing a number of favositid possibilities, we realized that this is a cerioid syringoporid. Tarquin suggested that, due to the appearance of domed and/or infundibuliform tabulae inside the transverse and longitudinal sections, along with a few apparent mural pores and a possible syrinx (mural pore tunnel) structure, this might be a roemeriid. This is exciting because, besides a documentation from the Devonian Canadian Arctic on Fossilworks, this family has not been found before on the American continent, certainly not in the U.S. I emailed photos to the tabulate coral specialist Dr. Mikolaj Zapalski, who confirmed Tarquin's diagnosis! Here's his reply this morning: I think that your diagnosis is correct - it is a roemeriid. . . . as far as I can tell, it resembles Roemeripora - but the corallites are much larger than any Roemeripora I have seen. On the other hand I have experience only with some Polish and Russian taxa, so these species may be different. An isolated specimen may not be very helpful, but if further specimens are found, this could be potentially interesting for research. Mikołaj K. Zapalski Ph. D., D. Sc., FLS University of Warsaw, Faculty of Geology So, it looks as though this could be the first known discovery of a roemeriid, possibly a new species of Roemeripora, from the U.S.! Here are photos! I'm sending the specimen to Tarquin in hopes that he can prep it a little better or notice more details that I've missed. Best! Lisa An annotation of the previous photo, showing possible mural pore and syrinx structure:

As you can see, Minnesota is locked into winter: Fossil hunting is obviously out of the question. But other activities can be just as enjoyable such as bird watching: Or fishing: Or working on cleaning up one's finds from last summer. Such has been the case this February. I had collected a colonial coral completely embedded in matrix last summer. Only the circular tips of the coral showed themselves. I have looked at that ball of rock many times wondering if I could expose its deeper treasures. So early this month, I began to remove the matrix around the coral. It became VERY frustrating because any exposed coral was EXTREMELY brittle. In fact at one point, I tossed it into my pitch pile out of frustration. But being a stubborn person, I looked at it in the trash can and said, one more time. This go around, I slowed down. How many times have I heard this when it comes to fossil prep! I got out my paraloid or b- something and smeared it on the exposed pieces to stabilize them. I super glued all of the broken bits back on. Then on a daily basis, I would expose a little more then stabilize it. Then after a few weeks, I could not reach any deeper and quit. Here is the specimen that I would like a conformation ID on: My guess is: Syringoporids are tabulate corals, a group that is always colonial. The corallites (tubes that contained the individual polyps) are vertical and were connected by small horizontal tubes, through which they shared common tissue. Some colonies had hundreds of corallites and built mounds up to a meter in diameter. Syringopora is the longest-ranging genus in the family, having started in the Ordovician Period and going extinct in the Permian.