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Lake Michigan beach fossil ID needed


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Hi there all of you brilliant fossil folks! 

 

My daughter found this at the beach north of Milwaukee, and I think it's a contender for our local fossil hunting competition (best coral category).  We tucked this and others fossils away earlier this summer, and I just realized that turn in is tomorrow!

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Coral-1.jpg

Coral-2.jpg

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+1 bryozoans. 

 

 

Mark.

 

Fossil hunting is easy -- they don't run away when you shoot at them!

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Yeah, I know there's a brachiopod cast in there as well.  Thanks for the ID on the bryozoans!

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This community is fantastic!  I'll try to be more involved. 

 

Strangely enough, I'm more versed in fossils from the Dakotas even though I live in Wisconsin.  It comes from many fossil hunting trips to that area.

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Can we see a photo with a ruler for scale? Although one should examine internal structures to tell bryozoans from corals, you can also use the diameter of the individual "pores" (the openings made by individual bryozoans or coral animals in the colony).  As a rule, these "pores" are a fraction of a millimeter in bryozoans, as opposed to a mm or larger (up to a cm or more) in corals.

 

Your specimens might be bryozoans, but I see a resemblance to the branching tabulate coral Thamnopora.  Some sense of size of your fossil would help choose between the possibilities.

 

Don

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Don, after looking at some pictures, I see what you mean by the branching tabulate similarities, and that could be it.  Unfortunately, we turned the fossil in yesterday morning before I saw your note.  Thanks to you and everyone else for chiming in though.  

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