Fossilized Coral on Stand

Fossil corals were simple marine invertebrates that possessed a sac-like body called a polyp with a mouth and stinging tentacles. As carnivorous animals, they would immobilize or kill their prey with their tentacles and then swallow them whole. Their dense outer skeleton was composed of Calcium Carbonate which would allow them to become a massive structure. Under unique geological conditions, prehistoric corals and mollusks can fossilize by being replaced with agate from silica-rich ground water percolating through Limestone. This is also how Petrified Wood is formed. A majority of Florida’s agatized coral was formed in the Oligocene-Miocene Hawthorn Group sediments in the northwest area of the state.