Rugose Coral from the CanadaWest member collection.

[The QCC]

Thin sections made from Rugose Coral sent to me by forum member CanadaWest..
There are seven corals in this collection.
The thin sections were photographed using a polarizing microscope or a stereo microscope with a simple polarizing kit.
I was not successful in making good thin section from all of the specimens so some photos are not the best possible.

This post is in four parts. Part 1

Coral 2 Rugose Coral, Carboniferous, Livingston form., Invemere, BC
Photo 2 - The initial polishing of a transverse section did not look promising, but a detail (Photo 3) looked interesting

Photo 4 is the same transverse section with further polishing and photographed with a stereo microscope with the Darkfield stop in place.
Photo 5 is a detail at 15x magnification with crossed polars only.

The Rugose Corals are also presented as web slide shows.

[The QCC]

Part 2

Coral 3 Rugose Coral, Dibunophyllum, Carboniferous, Sappington form., Montana
Photos 8 & 9 are from a previous post. On closer observation I noted what appears to me a distorted structure in the centre of the coral.

Photo 10 & 11 are from a different slice of the same coral further down the body. The section also shows the distorted centre area.

I do not know the significance of the distortion.

[The QCC]

Part 3

Coral 4 Rugose Coral, Caninia Carboniferous, Brown Cty, TX. Del Rio formation.
Photo 2 a full scan of a cross section. Photos 3 & 4 show details of the internal stucture as viewed through a lambda filter.

The lambda filter shifts the colours of the minerals that fill what was the soft part of the coral into a stained glass effect.
photos 1,2 3

[The QCC]

Part 4

Coral 5 Rugose Coral, Smithiphyllum, Devonian,Wadleigh Formation, Coronadas, Alaska

Photo 6 to 9 a full scans of cross sections cut from different locations along the coral.

All for parts of this post are presented as web slide shows.

[sdsnl]

Those are very beautiful!