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Really cool fossil but what is it??


CaraMarie

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I found this about 8 years ago in a dried up creek bed behind my house in the hills of Hayward, California in the San Francisco bay area, USA. We dug it out of some dry but soft sediment and I assumed I found a fungus/mushroom of some sort but now Im not so sure.  I am a hobby collector and love it no matter what it is but I would love to have an actual identification. Thanks!

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Edited by CaraMarie
Missing two photos
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It’s coral. Maybe someone familiar with the fossils in the area can narrow it down more.

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That is exactly what I was thinking. As I learned more about fossils I started to doubt my first impression of it. 

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Fabulous fossil. Thanks for the great pictures.

 

For a specific identifications, you might try contacting:

 

Invertebrate Collections

Museum of Paleontology
University of California
1101 Valley Life Sciences Building
Berkeley, CA 94720-4780

 

The name and contact information for the head of their Invertebrate Collections can be found at https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/contact-ucmp/#whotocontact and https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/people/ashley-dineen/ .

 

Yours,

 

Paul H.

 

 

Edited by Oxytropidoceras
typo
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There are reported corals from the Oakland Hills and marine rocks of Cretaceous to maybe the Miocene.

 

If you PM me the locality, I will try to see what likely rock units via a geological map that the fossil came from.

 

Contact my friend Andrew Alden who has a great website on the Oakland and surround areas geology. He tried to find corals in one of his posts.
 

https://oaklandgeology.com

 


 

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My goal is to leave no stone or fossil unturned.   

See my Arizona Paleontology Guide    link  The best single resource for Arizona paleontology anywhere.       

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Andrew said contact the UCMP. He thought that the rocks were Cretaceous or Pleistocene with nothing in between. 
 

I think that Cretaceous is a good bet. @HansTheLoser

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My goal is to leave no stone or fossil unturned.   

See my Arizona Paleontology Guide    link  The best single resource for Arizona paleontology anywhere.       

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If we exclude corallites, I can see why do you think it's a mushroom. :)

Nice specimen!

" We are not separate and independent entities, but like links in a chain, and we could not by any means be what we are without those who went before us and showed us the way. "

Thomas Mann

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Thanks for attracting me to this post. It is too young for Cretaceous and I think shallow marine Cretaceous is rare in California. I rather guess Neogene.

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