Ordovician Coral Id Needed

[crinus]

I have tried to ID this coral for quite awhile and have finally given up. I am hoping that someone has seen this coral and can easily ID it for me. It is from the Bobcaygeon formation of Ontario, Canada. I am hoping that someone has seen it in one of the NA Ordovician localities and can give me a genus ID at least. Not expecting a species ID. I am also wondering if anyone knows of a paleontologist that specialized in ordovician corals.

Thanks for any help

crinus

[Guest solius symbiosus]

Just curious, why are you thinking it is not an F. alveolata that has undergone some deformation during diagenesis?

Here is an F. halli

[crinus]

Just curious, why are you thinking it is not an F. alveolata that has undergone some deformation during diagenesis?

Here is an F. halli

Could very well be. By F. I assume that you mean Foerstephyllum. Your is the first decent picture of the species that I have seen.

[Guest solius symbiosus]

I was thinking Favistella, but that also works.

I might have to rethink my ID. I have some USGS professional papers that I am going to retrieve in a few weeks from a warehouse. I think that I have some on Ord Cnindaria ... I'll let you know.

[geofossil]

Colonial corals are a bit of a black box until the mid Silurian. The two principal groups of colonial corals, tabulate and rugose, are 'fuzzy' during the Ordovician. One would have to do a serial peel or thin section to identify your specimen to a genus. The only other way is to research the corals from that formation and 'assume' it is one of the genera colonial tabulates or rugose. Even then, however, corals found in an Ordovician formation might be classified in a general sense and not have actually been studied.

I've never done any coral research of Ordovician corals (I worked on Carboniferous and Permian species at the Geological Survey).. However, the formation you mention is part of the Simcoe Group and some of the more common colonial corals of that age group are the genera Foestephyllum and Favistella (as mentioned by Solius).

Re researchers. Because of the difficuly assigning Ordovician colonial corals to even general groups, they aren't as studied as are rugose corals from the Silurian to the Permian. Fauna groups, such as rugose corals, conodonts, ammonites, etc. are studied more in paleontology because they are used as index fossils to date rocks. Whereas, fauna such as sponges, tabulate corals, gastopods are less studied because they aren't as diagnostic. One could take a tabulate coral fron the Ordovician and one from the Carboniferous and have difficulty distinguishing them, but two rugose corals even within members of the same formation can display evolutionary changes and are thus better to date accompanying fauna with.

[Auspex]

I have tried to ID this coral for quite awhile and have finally given up...

Whatever else it is, it's quite a lovely fossil!

[crinus]

Whatever else it is, it's quite a lovely fossil!

Thanks Auspex. It is lovely, isn't it.

I had an paleontologist come over to my palce and look over my collection. He was very impressed with my collection of echinoderms from the Ordovician of Canada but mentioned a total lack of the more "common" stuff such as brachiopods, coral and bryozoans. Since then I have been filling in the gaps. Corals, however, are much rarer then he or I thought. I can probably pick up 20 echinoderms before I even see a hint of a coral. That is why I got excited when I found this one.

Geofossil - I did use a checklist of fossils from this formation to check vs my specimen. It was not a difficult task as there were only 6 genera of corals listed. Unfortunately, the Treatise only showed these coral as thin sections and that did not do me any good since I am not going to thin section mine. I was leaning towards Foerstephyllum and unless someone comes up with something elso I will go with that ID.

I would like to put some type of ID on the specimen. My Ordovician collection is destined for a musuem and from what I have seen (I do volunteer work at the museum) if I don't put an ID on it, no one will. There are over 2 million invertebrate specimens in this museum's collection and over 75% have no identification other that locality.

crinus

[Bill]

Hi Crinus,

That doesn't sound like the type of museum I'd donate anything to. You could always put, Foestephyllum? sp.

[crinus]

Hi Crinus,

That doesn't sound like the type of museum I'd donate anything to. You could always put, Foestephyllum? sp.

That is probably how I will label it. FYI - This is probably very typical of most museums. I have spoken to several collection managers and most only catalogue type collections and maybe some other stuff someone deams important. Too much stuff to catalogue everything. Most museums have no idea of what they have in their collection.

crinus

[Bill]

Edited by me.