Coral

I can't help with the ID amygdule. Wish I could. Fine and apparently rare specimens regardless.
The only way I know about my coral is because a PHD Florida paleontologist identified it lol.

This is the identification parameters of most corals using my coral as an example:



However I do find various -species- of scleractinia and they are all OLIGOCENE era.
I believe the species Floridaeprima is a convenient B.S. label for that given fossil coral found in a given location(s) in Florida.

Most coral ID is complicated with living corals much less fossil corals. Truth is, most fossil corals can not be identified in all aspects.

This may help with ID of your hexacoral corals. Hex corals are all complex to ID too.
If they are old they will fall in the Rugosa category, new go to the Scleratinia.

If you are brave and exceedingly brilliant you can open the link and give it a try:

app.pan.pl/archive/published/app25/app25-395.pdf

Intro to above link:

"Modern stony corals (hexacorals) belong to the OLder Scleractinia which ranges
from Middle Triassic to Holocene. The Paleozoic analog of the Scleractinia is the:
Order Rugosa (rugose or tetracorals) which ranges from the Middle Ordovician
through the Permian. Two hypotheses of the relationship between these two groups
of corals are current: 1) direct descent; the Scleractinia evolved directly from the
Rugosa, either mono- or polyphyletically; and 2) independent origin; the Scleractinia
evolved by the development of a skeleton in members of one of the soft-bodied anthozoan groups that probably existed throughout the Paleozoic."

Some funky tumble able chips from a fast flowing Swift Creek.



Slab



Coral heads from an iron rich clay vein:



Swift Creek is swift



Calmer section, coral litters the bottom of the creek



watch for water snakes when snorkeling(some bad experiences)

Divisions of taxonomy in Biology for the record.

For a human:



For a coral:

"Snorkeling and Water Snakes!!" doesn't sound like a good match at all!!!

Good looking material.

Correct RickB, a fine bunch. We had a great time. Those 4 spent that whole day harvesting specimens out of that section of shore.
Mark and Keith were well versed at collecting on the Withlacoochee, Sonya and Anne were on sensory overload. The PHD folks were blown away at the shear volume of fossilized coral and found a couple of points which made their trip. there is very few places in Georgia where so much chert and silicified material can be found.

There was not much space for a fellow snorkeling and a snake to pass by Henry.

It's the Cottonmouths that scare me. I know the books say that they are not aggressive. Apparently some of those snakes cannot read!!!

Would it because they are smaller so it's less spread out?

It is difficult to say brybry. Theses corals were at ground level at one point sitting on limestone bedrock and fairly organized until the newer river dissolved the limestone bedrock out from under them. Then they all ended up down in the river channel and well mixed up.

It is often called shelf coral because it sits on the old limestone bedrock shelf higher up on the river bank. The coral layer is thin compared to the sand overburden covering the coral and the bedrock.

If they sat in sand when they silicified they are a dull grey color. If sitting in clay they typically have color.
To find color look for clay on the limestone shelf higher upon the river bank.

In a mile of river many types of clay can be encountered. And many color variations in the coral.