Devonian Horn Coral - New York

This is a fossil horn coral (Stereolasma rectum) from the Windom Shale of NY. It's Devonian in age, or approximately 385 million years old. It has been prepared under microscope using air abrasives to reveal all of the surface detail. The rock underneath it has been sawed up so it stands up on a flat surface and displays quite nicely.

Horn coral or Rugose coral first appeared in the geological record 488 million years ago and went extinct during the great Permian extinction 251 million years ago. They get their name from the hornlike structures built by the coral animal. They are very often used as an index fossil to help correlate the geological age of different formations.