# Is this a piece of fossilized coral I found in my yard? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 1, 2012, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-piece-of-fossilized-coral-i-found-in-my-yard/639613 "2012-11-01T21:05:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-piece-of-fossilized-coral-i-found-in-my-yard/639613/21 "2012-11-02T14:57:58Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Yeah, what other people have said - looks like brain coral, could be a fossil, could be recent, hard to say if you’re not an expert. But generally, I would not expect to find a fossil just lying in the soil, so I’d vote “recent anthropogenic erratic”. If it were really a coral fossil, I’d expect to find it in a bed of similar rocks with other corals and the like. I disagree only because I found coral a few times when I was growing up near the Louisiana-Texas border. I found it deep in the woods where no one would have put it and it also was found in the dirt but also only a few inches or a couple of feet down. The examples that I found were also well preserved and looked like they could have been placed there recently but there was no way that they were. It was my family’s land and had never been cleared at least in modern times and the nearest ocean was several hundred miles away. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-piece-of-fossilized-coral-i-found-in-my-yard/639613/22 "2012-11-02T16:08:24Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I disagree only because I found coral a few times when I was growing up near the Louisiana-Texas border. I found it deep in the woods where no one would have put it and it also was found in the dirt but also only a few inches or a couple of feet down. The examples that I found were also well preserved and looked like they could have been placed there recently but there was no way that they were. It was my family’s land and had never been cleared at least in modern times and the nearest ocean was several hundred miles away. Did you find it “a few times” in the same area? Because then “with other corals and the like” applies. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2012, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-piece-of-fossilized-coral-i-found-in-my-yard/639613/23 "2012-11-03T19:38:46Z")
Well someone had to say it. No your yards just pleased t seeou. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2012, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-piece-of-fossilized-coral-i-found-in-my-yard/639613/24 "2012-11-03T19:55:38Z")
Coral (I’m not sure if it’s fossilized or not) is a common find in beach pebbles on Lake Michigan. Not surprising, since most of the Great Lakes (excluding Superior) was a shallow inland basin millions of years ago. The dolomite limestone that makes up the bedrock, exposed at places like Niagara Falls in the east and Door County, Wisconsin, in the west, includes fossilized small salt sea creatures. > [@](#): > > Like most other sedimentary rocks, most [limestone](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limestone) is composed of grains. Most grains in limestone are skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-piece-of-fossilized-coral-i-found-in-my-yard/639613/25 "2012-11-04T04:10:03Z")
I find it funny that people are so incredulous about finding a piece of fossilized coral. Used to find the stuff all the time when I was a kid (in north Georgia). If you live in a place that was once underwater, fossilized coral tends to be pretty common. So yeah, I vote fossilized coral. ---
**Author:** ![Melkor28](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Melkor28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melkor28)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-piece-of-fossilized-coral-i-found-in-my-yard/639613/26 "2012-11-04T09:51:34Z")
Maybe it was carried there by a Swallow? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-a-piece-of-fossilized-coral-i-found-in-my-yard/639613.md?page=1)