This specimen is Fossil Stony Coral. Stony Coral is a type of coral that had a hard skeleton. The specimens measure between 2 cm x 2 cm and 5.5 cm x 3 cm.
- Catalog Number:
- 51688
- Object/Specimen Description:
- Specimen Count:
- 12
- Precise Locality:
Chesapeake Bay
- Locality:
- US Mid Atlantic (PA, NJ, MD, DE, DC, VA, WV)
- Collecting Date:
- 1977
- Collecting Locality:
- North America, Chesapeake Bay, United States, Maryland, Calvert County
- Upper Level Taxonomy:
- Animalia, Cnidaria, Anthozoa, Zoantharia, Scleractinia, Faviina, Oculinidae
While some fossil corals from the Precambrian (more than 540 million years ago) have been found, they are not abundant until later. By about 450 million years ago, several groups of corals were common on Earth. Early corals included Rugosa and Tabulata corals, both with calcite skeletons. Some Rugosa (the horn corals) were solitary, while others lived in large colonies. Tabulata formed colonies with hexagonal patterns like honeycombs. Sponges and bryozoans were still the main reef builders, but these colonial corals gradually surpassed them. The Permian corals went extinct at the end-of-Permian mass extinction event, but soft-bodied, anemone like animals (“naked corals”) survived. Naked corals gave rise to modern calcified corals (scleractinians), formed when they adapted t geochemical changes in the ocean by secreting stony skeletons. During the Triassic (about 250 million years ago), stony corals assumed their role that continues today as the main reef builders on Earth.