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Fossil or modern coral


Carl

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Hi all, a friend of a friend found this on the most northern point of Lake Superior, off Copper Harbor. I suspect it is fossil but to my eye it just strikes me as modern. Maybe escaped aquarium coral. But this person also claims to have found other pieces of corals there. Might anyone be able to say if this agrees with fossil corals of that area or is it a taxon not to be expected from the Paleozoic? Thanks!

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I'm pretty sure it's modern; scleractinian anyway. Definitely not a Palaeozoic one.

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Tarquin

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Yes, I agree with Tarquin; a scleractinian coral that looks modern. 

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Definitely not a horn coral and certainly not a Petoskey Stone (Hexagonaria) nor a Charlevoix Stone (Favosites), nor Organ Pile (Syringopora), nor Chain Corals (Halysites). I don't know my midwest fossil corals as well as I know my extant species but this find does not seem to clearly fit into any of the normal types of fossil corals that can be found in Michigan. I suspect (as others do) that this one was relocated in the Anthropocene to the location where it was found. If it is a fragment of a modern coral picked up while beachcombing and (confusingly) dumped off on a distant beach sometime later then it may be a coral in the genus Siderastrea or Stephanocoenia.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

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