strange find

[cabojohn]

My entire family spent Thanksgiving at Lake Havasu, AZ.
Our family has a vacation home out there...and it seemed like the thing to do. I have a large family and we are all close.
Did I mention it was very f'n cold & windy? The temp got in the high 20's at night.

Anyway, later Friday afternoon my pal "Rudy" wanted to burn off some Thanksgiving calories and go for a trail run.


.
This is Rudy:












We were high out in the desert about Lake Havasu City, AZ running up a sandy wash...there were lots of grey & brown rocks around but this one RED/PINK rock caught my attention. I went over to investigate and dug this thing up. I'm pretty sure its coral. It sure seems out of place!? ha I have no idea how it got there? I did a search and was not able to find anythin else? I think it s a kewl find and thought I would share it here.
Here are a couple pics:

and another






















...and a random pic of Friday's Crawdad feast on the grill .


I may have brought a dozen or two of these things.

[-scallywag-]

cool find!!!

most likely leftovers from what I believe was called the Western Interior Seaway ???

amazing that it still has its colors after so many (millions?) of years.

Out here near superstition mtn. there is a huge shell reef with tons of oysters, shell, corals and anenomie fossils....but never seen one with so much color.

[ericko]

I clean tropical fish tanks for a living and that coral is used in many of my tanks cause of the nice red color...the name i forgot pipe something...It sells 4 around $15 -$35 depends on the size.

[steveooo]

Nuts!

[Riskey Water]

Thats an amazing find there ,and a good " What the hell " story .Reminds me of a story about 4 years ago about a guy who was metal detecting out that way and found a 4lb Gold rock , nugget just understates the size of it ,maybe you'll find Moses CD collection on your next run ,Good job on the coral find

[stairman]

Its a fossilized coral.Find some dilute hydrocloric acid and put a drop or two in a damaged section.If it fizzes it is actual coral.if it doesn't the actual coral has been replaced by other minerals.
Can you tell me exactly(long ,lat)where you got it?I promise to catch and release all rocks collected.

[Dan]

Originally Posted by -scallywag-

amazing that it still has its colors after so many (millions?) of years.

Dood. The world is only 6000 years old Scally!

[Ed]

That's a cow pie. Wash your hands boy

[Aaron]

Its not a fossil. That thing is modern. Western Interior Seaway was a Cretaceous sea that basically cut North America into two equal parts about 100 million years ago. You find a ton of fossils in sediments deposited in the WIS but its shoreline never made it to the havasu area.

That's a pipe coral (Tubipora musica) probably dropped out of someone's aquarium. Definitely will fizz if you drop some dilute hydrochloric acid on it as like most corals, its structure is made of calcium carbonate (calcite or limestone) Those white worm-looking things on the red structure are the remains of calcareous tube worms (polychaetes). You've probably seen them on seashells at the beach.

That's it for the lesson for the day. I figured that this somehow counts as work...

[stairman]

Sorry aaron but the western interior seaway is in reference to a cretaceous sea that separated the western most canadian mountains and alaska from what would become the eastern portion of the us and canada.It was a branch of the ocean that separated america into two different continents.It was never west of the rockies.
It is entirely possible that it came from someones aquarium though.People throw all kinds of junk out in the desert.

Originally Posted by Aaron

Its not a fossil. That thing is modern. Western Interior Seaway was a Cretaceous sea that basically cut North America into two equal parts about 100 million years ago. You find a ton of fossils in sediments deposited in the WIS but its shoreline never made it to the havasu area.

That's a pipe coral (Tubipora musica) probably dropped out of someone's aquarium. Definitely will fizz if you drop some dilute hydrochloric acid on it as like most corals, its structure is made of calcium carbonate (calcite or limestone) Those white worm-looking things on the red structure are the remains of calcareous tube worms (polychaetes). You've probably seen them on seashells at the beach.

That's it for the lesson for the day. I figured that this somehow counts as work...

[Gino]

find those but white colored, and the holes are much bigger. Laguna is littered with them, they make a good center peice with come conch shells. you can fidnt he conch shells in same place.

[old_rookie]

I just like to look at cabojohn's posts to see what new image he's got in his sig.

[StinkyMatt]

If THAT is Cabo John and my wife sees this site, my fishin days are over!

"Honey, John and I are gonna go fishing together this weekend....."

Slap, kick, punch.......sign these papers you SunuvaBi$%#!

[Aaron]

Originally Posted by stairman

Sorry aaron but the western interior seaway is in reference to a cretaceous sea that separated the western most canadian mountains and alaska from what would become the eastern portion of the us and canada.It was a branch of the ocean that separated america into two different continents.It was never west of the rockies.
It is entirely possible that it came from someones aquarium though.People throw all kinds of junk out in the desert.

lol, what? That's exactly what I said. If you would prefer a map...

And if you would also prefer links to info about the coral...
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/galler...tes/index.html
and...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_pipe_coral

[steveooo]

Typical. Seems like every winter when its cold and the fishing is slow, the conversations always turns to internet bickering about Cretaceous sea's
Is it summer yet?

[TCS]

The question is whether the Cretaceous Sea had a bikini brigade and good fishing.

[Aaron]

Good grief steve, you couldn't be more right. I haven't been able to pry myself away from work, I'm insanely bitter about it and now I'm on BWE explaining/arguing about the western interior seaway??? Shit...just, shit. slow fishing or not, I'd give my right arm to be out there.

Seaway would have had an insanely good bite on marine reptiles and chondrichthyans, no bikini brigade, and ammonites would have stuck around for months on end for bait.

[driftwood]

Anybody seen any Great White sharks in La Jolla lately?

[dfroggy54]

Pass the butter!

[Fiskadoro]

Originally Posted by Aaron

Its not a fossil. That thing is modern. ...That's a pipe coral (Tubipora musica) probably dropped out of someone's aquarium. Definitely will fizz if you drop some dilute hydrochloric acid on it as like most corals, its structure is made of calcium carbonate (calcite or limestone) Those white worm-looking things on the red structure are the remains of calcareous tube worms (polychaetes). You've probably seen them on seashells at the beach...

Glad someone else said it... Yeah it was dumped not a fossil. Pipe coral is brittle even fragile, and hollow, a fossilized coral is much harder, and solid. I've got a chunk of that stuff sitting around here somewhere that I used to have in my aquarium.

Jim