Interesting coral - Morocco

[GeschWhat]

Okay, it is now ground flat. Do I need to take more of or is this sufficient? it seems to be losing detail in the mid regions. 

[Tidgy's Dad]

26 minutes ago, GeschWhat said:

Okay, it is now ground flat. Do I need to take more of or is this sufficient? it seems to be losing detail in the mid regions. 

It looks rather beautiful. 

Thanks for sacrificing your specimen, hopefully in a good cause.  

[GeschWhat]

4 minutes ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

It looks rather beautiful. 

Thanks for sacrificing your specimen, hopefully in a good cause.  

It really does. Always happy to sacrifice in the name of science 

[Pachy]

Ok, thanks.

Please, some binocular shots or sort shots of those areas that I indicated and finished.

 

[GeschWhat]

I think I shot the wrong spot for #1, so will post later.

[GeschWhat]

Here is area 1.

[Pachy]

Enough, it is not Funginelllastraea.

One last contribution to this post. Be critical

If someone had not been critical of any of the statements in this post ...

On 12/11/2017 at 7:36 PM, HansTheLoser said:

Agree with Pachy, but I would rule out Cyclastraea (Cenomanian). Nothing to do with Cyclolites and nothing with Cretaceous. Probably Eocene.

Corals must be sectionned in order to put a name on them.

Funginellastraea is very probable.

[Pachy]

...... maybe we would never have reached this other one.

It does not matter if Mr. Pachy says so or Mr. Hans The Loser says so. If anyone has any reasonable doubt, he should say so.
You should reconsider the "post informative" concept, even if opinions are contrary to yours or contrary to those of Mr. Hans The Loser.

13 hours ago, HansTheLoser said:

Please be aware that there exist a lot of cyclolitid and discoid coral genera that look alike but belong to different families. This type of coral was a common strategy to survice on muddy surfaces. Therefore, it is not possible to give an opinion without having at least sections in both directions.

 

The Cretaceous material shown here by Tidgy's Dad could belong to Pseudocunnolites Reig, 1988 that is indeed a member of the Fungiidae. The genus is revised (Batalleria 22, 2015; PDF on request).

 

Cunnolites is a synonym of Cylolites. It is true, that Cyclolites is not as flat as most material shown here, but there is a genus Paracunnolites Beauvais, 1964 from the Santonian of Austria that probably belongs to the Cyclolitidae. I cannot comment on this because I know only the type of the type species (Fungia humilis Quenstedt, 1880) but no other material (although I have seen some material from that area), so questionable distribution.

Funginella is another problem; the type material could be anything; it is not sectioned.

Cycloseris is clearly a Fungiid coral that does very probably not occur in the Cretaceous.

[Pachy]

As you have seen, preparing materials is not complicated. With corals it is necessary and helps to reach conclusions. I encourage you to do it.
Good luck for everybody.

[Tidgy's Dad]

I have enjoyed all this very much. 

But do we know what it is? 

The Cretaceous and Eocene ones ?

Are they the same and if not, what do we think they are? 

I am sorry if I've missed something, but have we established a genus/ genera?

[GeschWhat]

1 hour ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

I have enjoyed all this very much. 

But do we know what it is? 

The Cretaceous and Eocene ones ?

Are they the same and if not, what do we think they are? 

I am sorry if I've missed something, but have we established a genus/ genera?

I second everything Tidgy's Dad's just said. This was really fun!

 

I could start slowly grinding down the sides if it would provide additional information or wait until February when I can pick up additional samples to work with.

 

@Pachy, if you wouldn't mind, could you tell me what you saw that lead to your conclusion (in layman terms)? Was it the little rectangular structures? I know so little about corals.

 

 

[Pachy]

4 hours ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

I have enjoyed all this very much. 

But do we know what it is? 

The Cretaceous and Eocene ones ?

Are they the same and if not, what do we think they are? 

I am sorry if I've missed something, but have we established a genus/ genera?

I believe that, as the sellers report, the materials are cretaceous.
I have not established any genus. I have only eliminated some, Cyclolites and Funginellastraea.

[Pachy]

3 hours ago, GeschWhat said:

I second everything Tidgy's Dad's just said. This was really fun!

 

I could start slowly grinding down the sides if it would provide additional information or wait until February when I can pick up additional samples to work with.

 

@Pachy, if you wouldn't mind, could you tell me what you saw that lead to your conclusion (in layman terms)? Was it the little rectangular structures? I know so little about corals.

 

 

Yes, those elements are not present in Funginellastraea. You can see that it do not appear in the polish of my spanish Bartonian specimen.
That is the main reason, although there are others that would be long to specify and I do not think they contribute more than doubts for not initiated in this of the corals.

[doushantuo]

 

I'll let this one stand,fully cognizant of the fact that this model might not be totally applicable in the case of  the corals being discussed here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[doushantuo]

fungiid septa(Hoeksema,1989)

[Tidgy's Dad]

So, another new Moroccan species, perhaps?

[GeschWhat]

Guess what I found in the bottom of my drawer? Yep, I did have one more. This one was a little more damaged on one side so it was a perfect sacrificial specimen. That said, I don't know if it will tell us anything. I ground down two sides - one in each direction - and polished them. I don't see any growth bands, but perhaps we would need a thin section for that. This is the best I can do with the equipment I have. I took the sections through the highest points of the coral. 

[abyssunder]

Good work, Lori!

[GeschWhat]

54 minutes ago, abyssunder said:

Good work, Lori!

Thank you, kind sir 

[Pachy]

Yes, very good work, congratulations. Tomorrow coment my opinion about it.

[Tidgy's Dad]

I'm not sure I can wait that long! ! ! !! !

[doushantuo]

Useful taxonomic information might be gleaned from the ultrastructure(nanometer-scale structure),to be gained by using SEM/TEM,the microtome,etc..

Diagenesis often destroys possibly taxononomically useful structures.

Which structures are taxonomically useful has been a topic of controversial discussion(by scientists like e.g. Duerden,Bernard and Ogilvie Gordon since the start of the 20th

century(see below:Porites)

 

 

[doushantuo]

[Pachy]

13 hours ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

I'm not sure I can wait that long! ! ! !! !

I hope you were able to sleep.

It's not a good week for me, a lot of work. Fortunately, Doushantuo has kept you entertained.

[Pachy]

21 hours ago, GeschWhat said:

Guess what I found in the bottom of my drawer? Yep, I did have one more. This one was a little more damaged on one side so it was a perfect sacrificial specimen. That said, I don't know if it will tell us anything. I ground down two sides - one in each direction - and polished them. I don't see any growth bands, but perhaps we would need a thin section for that. This is the best I can do with the equipment I have. I took the sections through the highest points of the coral. 

 

Well, what we're going. I think what we can see there is this:

 

Although I can not clearly see perforations in the septa, I think they could be intuited in some areas. This and the presence of compound synapticulae would point to the Fungiidae family as Mr. Hans The Loser pointed out. Probably we are getting closer.

All this if I am not mistaken in my appreciations, for a while I exceeded the superior amateur level ("I have touched many of these bugs and I have studied the subject ").