Sunday, August 23, 2009

Horn Coral Siphonophrentis elongata

Usually, the fragments of one of the largest horn corals to grow in the Louisville Kentucky area are not as large as the one shown in these pictures. This coral piece is well over 30 cm. It is the largest coral species found to grow here with the largest reported at 1.5 m which they mostly only reached lengths up to 60 cm.

This one was found in Louisville, Kentucky in the Jeffersonville Limestone. Reading the Kentucky Geological Survey Special Bulletin 19, Series XI, 1993: Fossils Beds of the Falls of the Ohio by Stephen Greb, Richard Hendricks, and Donald Chesnut, it says, "They are common in the coral, Amphipora ramosa, Brevispirifer gregarius, and fenestrate bryozoan-brachiopod zones in the Jeffersonville Limestone."