Not Your Typical ID... Any Geologists Here?

What are the chances of finding fossilized wood hidden inside the skeleton of a live coral at a mile above sea level?

That's what it appears to be to me anyway, but I'm sure there's someone here that knows more about geology than me. What are your thoughts?

 

Great find! Tagging along for sure on this

 

Really cool piece of rock you found. What part do you think looks like wood? I don't see anything that looks like petrified wood. To me, from my laptop at home, the whole thing looks marine.


I have a buddy who's a PHD in geology and civil engineering, and who specializes in sink holes down here in florida. I'll send him the pic.

 

Relatively common to find fossilized sea organisms within mountain ranges. A lot of mountain ranges were at one point oceanic crust, thrusted upwards by subduction of one plate under another or one plate colliding with another. For instance, the Himalayas were created when India collided with Asia some 40-50 million years ago.

There used to be an ocean basin (100 million years ago) right where the rocky mountains are presently.

 

Here's what my boy had to say after I texted him your pic.

"Silicified coral. Agate. "
"That looks like algal mat on the left. "
"Stromatolites"

 

Thanks for sharing.

Stromatalites are fascinating colonies of bacteria. You can find a form of them in Australia presently.

I took a few geology classes during my studies, but focused mainly on Oceanography.

 

I hear you Kevin, Oceanography is my favorite class ever. I just wish there was more funding and a decent living doing it.

 

The dark area on the left looks like petrified wood to my untrained eyes.

This was inside a live coral that was collected in the Indo region...

Stromatolites do look really similar. That would certainly make a lot more sense.

 

I agree. I earned a degree in Environmental Science. I took a wide variety of courses ranging from meteorology, to climatology, to oceanography to Geology.

I was thankful to earn a environmental consulting job before I even graduated.

 

Yeah, that's not surprising at all. Many of those islands in the Pacific were formed in similar fashion. Subduction of oceanic crust, thrusted upwards to form volcanic island chains (Ring of fire).