The fossil that recent DSP visitors brought to identify is (I believe strongly) horn coral- any coral of the order Rugosa, which first appeared in the geologic record during the Ordovician Period, which began 488 million years ago; the Rugosa persisted through the Permian Period, which ended 251 million years ago. (Well before the time of the dinosaurs...) Horn corals, which are named for the hornlike shape of the individual structures built by the coral animal, were either solitary or colonial forms. Of the many forms known, some are important as index, or guide, fossils for specific spans of geologic time and serve to correlate sometimes widely separated rock units. Because of their mode of growth, some horn corals have been employed as biological clocks to determine the length of the day and year in the distant geologic past. This specimen could have very likely come from Texas as they were widespread and abundant in the shallow warm seas that covered much of our continent at that time.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 14:27:00 +0000
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