Coral found in Big Brook, NJ

[TRexEliot]

I read recently that some reworked devonian corals can be found mixed in with the fossils at big brook, and I wanted to post this old find to get people's opinion. Kind of looks like a lot of devonian corals I've found, but I had just assumed it was cretaceous because of the location.

 

 

[Trevor]

I can confirm that it is Devonian coral, but I do not know a specific genus or species. Nice find.

[TRexEliot]

@Trevor very cool. Any idea where this devonian material originated? I assume there was a devonian deposit somewhere in the area that was eroding out during the cretaceous and that these specimens were re-worked and settled in the newly forming cretaceous layer?

[Jeffrey P]

The coral probably originated up in New York. Schoharie and Albany counties are particularly rich in them. They would have been brought down by the glacier during the Ice Age when the ice sheet extended as far as New York Harbor. Big Brook is full of glacial outwash. The Cretaceous sediments are what you see in the embankments and in the bottom of the stream where it is exposed. 

Edited July 6, 2021 by Jeffrey P