Carboniferous Corals From The Uk

[TqB]

13 hours ago, Bobby Rico said:

Looks like a fossilised rorschach test 

very beautiful specimens and photography. Thanks for sharing..

 

Thanks, Bobby, it does. I saw a lepidopterid, like Roger.

 

12 hours ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

 

Stunning! 

It's funny, but I was only chatting to @Bobby Rico about L. vorticale a few hours back. 

It's a distant cousin of his, or something. 

Thanks, Adam, he is very close to them, I believe. 

 

11 hours ago, Ludwigia said:

A Flutterby! Beautiful!

Thanks, Roger! - trouble is it works on quite a lot of pebbles so twice the work in future.

[TqB]

Another Dibunophyllum bipartitum, the commonest solitary coral in my area. Selectively silicified which makes for an attractive if rather obscured cross section.

 

Pendleian, Great Limestone, Co. Durham.

 

 

 

Sediment filled calicular surface (with little brachiopod and ?Syringopora fragment)

 

Side view

 

[Bobby Rico]

Incredibly beautiful , great photos too. 

[TqB]

@Bobby Rico Thanks! (Sorry for the delay, just seen this!).

 

Here's a specimen that's only going in my collection as photos.

 

Over 2ft across, it's the nicest in situ specimen of this one that I've seen.

It's usually partly submerged in a stream in a small gorge but it's dry at the moment so I made a trip to photograph it today.

 

Actinocyathus laticlavia, Great Limestone, Pendleian, Co. Durham

 

 

 

[FossilDAWG]

Beautiful coral, beautiful landscape.

 

Don

[TqB]

7 hours ago, FossilDAWG said:

Beautiful coral, beautiful landscape.

 

Don

And only half an hour's drive from where I live. It's why we've never moved.  

[Bobby Rico]

That’s a beauty . The Rico’s will have to make a trip next time we are in Yorkshire to see the beautiful countryside of Co Durham .great photos as ever. Cheers Bobby 

[TqB]

8 minutes ago, Bobby Rico said:

That’s a beauty . The Rico’s will have to make a trip next time we are in Yorkshire to see the beautiful countryside of Co Durham .great photos as ever. Cheers Bobby 

Thanks, Bobby! Let me know when and I'll show you some corals in the wild.

[Bobby Rico]

1 minute ago, TqB said:

Thanks, Bobby! Let me know when and I'll show you some corals in the wild.

Thanks that will be fantastic I will indeed. Cheers Bobby 

[RJB]

Im not a coral guy, but I have to say there is a lot of really neato stuff here!  And some dang nice photo's too! 

 

RB

[TqB]

4 hours ago, RJB said:

Im not a coral guy, but I have to say there is a lot of really neato stuff here!  And some dang nice photo's too! 

 

RB

Kind of you to say so, thanks for looking!

[Tidgy's Dad]

Wonderful. 

I love these corals. 

[TqB]

3 hours ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

Wonderful. 

I love these corals. 

Thanks, Adam! Let coral love spread!

[TqB]

I've neglected this thread for while so here's one I cut today, and couldn't resist doing both bookmatched halves again.

 

A 5" river cobble of Actinocyathus laticlavia, Great Limestone, Pendleian (bottom of the Namurian), from Weardale, Co. Durham, NE England.

 

 

[Bobby Rico]

Wow your pictures are beautiful. Incredible details in your corals. Nice post Tarquin . Cheers Bobby 

[TqB]

 @Bobby Rico Thanks, Bobby! A fairly common species but probably my favourite, always gives me a buzz when I find one though I leave most of them for other people nowadays.

[Ludwigia]

Glad to see you're posting here again. These things are just luverly!

[ynot]

Thanks for adding these beautiful corals to this wonderful thread.

[TqB]

12 hours ago, Ludwigia said:

Glad to see you're posting here again. These things are just luverly!

Thanks, I have a few more to process. I haven't found anything different for a while though and specimens are becoming quite scarce in my usual hunting grounds - and not all my fault!

 

9 hours ago, ynot said:

Thanks for adding these beautiful corals to this wonderful thread.

Thank you, my pleasure.

[minnbuckeye]

On ‎11‎/‎6‎/‎2017 at 2:59 PM, TqB said:

Coral about 2.5 cm diameter, photographed covered by water

 

Your coral specimens are spectacular!! I enjoy every coral you bring to this forum. I did notice the quote above in an earlier post. Do you usually photograph with this method? It makes sense. I wet a fossil to bring out it's detail at times, but then it looks wet.  Your technique does not give the same impression as a wet fossil.

 

 Mike

[TqB]

1 hour ago, minnbuckeye said:

 

Your coral specimens are spectacular!! I enjoy every coral you bring to this forum. I did notice the quote above in an earlier post. Do you usually photograph with this method? It makes sense. I wet a fossil to bring out it's detail at times, but then it looks wet.  Your technique does not give the same impression as a wet fossil.

 

 Mike

Thanks, Mike! Yes, I usually photograph polished pieces in a white bowl of water, just covering the fossil by 1 - 2mm, with the camera directly above on a copy stand. Usually, I use low angle illumination which brings out 3D structure if the interstitial calcite/silica is clear enough.

Actually, it seems to work best if they're not quite polished, so typically with 1200 grit - it stops the thin water layer from pooling.  

[Tidgy's Dad]

That Actinocyathus is stunning! 

Great photography too. 

[TqB]

34 minutes ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

That Actinocyathus is stunning! 

Great photography too. 

Thanks, Adam! I think I mentioned before that the majority of Moroccan corals sold as Devonian Hexagonaria are actually Carboniferous Actinocyathus! I've yet to see an actual Moroccan Hexagonaria.

[TqB]

A common and usually rather overlooked tabulate genus, Syringopora is actually quite rare in the Great Limestone and I've been looking out for a nice bit to section.

 

Picked up a few days ago, this one shows clear septal spines which I hadn't seen before very well and which may not always be present. 

The corallites are only 1.2 - 1.5mm diameter so not the easiest to see detail in.

 

The colony is clearly established on a temporary hardish substrate following a crinoidal debris shower. It then grew for a while, the spaces being filled with fine mud, before being wiped out by another debris event (photo 2).

Species are often hard to establish - this one seems close to a Syringopora ramulosa from the Moscow basin that's figured in the Treatise.

 

Great Limestone, Pendleian (bottom of the Namurian), from Weardale, Co. Durham, NE England.

Brass scale bar 1cm.

 

 

Long funnel-shaped tabulae showing well in some sections.

 

 

 

 

[TqB]

I spotted this yesterday on the website of a reputable dealer and grabbed it because I wasn't sure what it was (good postal service!) - it looks like an unusually large corallite Lithostrotion.

 

It comes from the Holderness coast of Yorkshire, an exclusively glacial Boulder Clay area full of a wide range of glacial erratics, a real collectors' bran tub.

 

After chatting to a Carboniferous coral specialist, the best bet is that it's close to being a cerioid version of Siphonodendron sociale (based on 32 or more major septa and tabularium of about 8mm). It'll be earlier Mississippian rather than later (pre-Brigantian in UK terms). Without the stratigraphy, that's probably as much as we can say.

 

So, a sort of cross between Lithostrotion (cerioid) and Siphonodendron (fasciculate) and pointing up the difficulty in separating the two genera - lots of people think it shouldn't have happened!

 

scale bar 1cm