Coral From Lower Cretaceous Weno Fm Northern Texas Id

[DPS Ammonite]

I found these coral fossils in the Lower Cretaceous Weno Formation (or possible Paw Paw Fm), in northern Grayson County in northern Texas. The rock is a silty ironstone with lots of marine shells. The corals are about 5mm across and about 1-1.5mm thick. I think that they might be Microbacia sp.

Has anyone found similar corals in the Weno Fm or other areas of similar age? Any idea of species?

Does anyone know researchers that are working on Cretaceous corals and would be interested in this find?

See: North American Upper Cretaceous Corals of the Genus Micrabacia by Stephenson for descriptions of more recent Micrabacia corals.

Thanks for any help.

PS How do I move this post to the proper "Fossil ID" forum?

Edited October 23, 2014 by DPS Ammonite

[JohnJ]

Topic moved.

[Plax]

very interesting, we get Micrabacia in our late cretaceous here in NC and have collected it in Delaware also. Nice to see them so well preserved.

[HansTheLoser]

Wells (1933) described material from "Tarrant County, Fort Worth, Katy Lake dam" Washita Gp, Weno Limestone (Upper Albian) as Platycyathus scottianus n.sp. . Your material looks alike. Micrabacia has a perforate wall (the wall is the lower face of the coral), whereas your specimens have a compact wall. I think that Platycyathus is OK. The genus was originally described from the Santonian of France but occurs also in the European Albian and Cenomanian.

[DPS Ammonite]

Welcome to the Fossil Forum HansTheLoser. What a great first post.

The fossil does look like Platycyathus scottianus in "Corals of the Cretaceous of the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain and Western Interior of the United States" by John W. Wells. This paper is a great resource on Cretaceous Texas corals. See illustrations of this coral. Texas K corals p181 .pdfTexas K corals text .pdf

[HansTheLoser]

Wells (1932, 1933) is outdated now. Most genera are not correct anymore. Wells was a newby when he worked on Cretaceous material. Unfortunately because of the rarity of corals in the Texan Cretaceous not much has been revised since that. Most type material is availabe in Austin and Washington D.C.