[DOGSLOVETHESE (OP)]

I have just discovered this site, it is pretty cool. I have this really funky rock that I'm trying to identiy. It is kind of a light brown color and the base is solid rock but the top is bizarre. It's covered with tiny little holes that are tube like. Does anyone have any idea what this is? Thanks!

[Karen W.]

WOW THAT LOOKS LIKE A PETRIFIED HONEYCONB OR SPONGE OF SORTS.. VERY COOL! SOMEONE WILL COME ALONG TO HELP YOU ID THOSE PIECES AS I AM ONLY ENJOYING YOUR POST AND AM NOT YOUR EXPERT! lol....
WELCOME TO THE SITE!

[JimBob]

How Hard is it and where did it come from- it could be a sponge or a coral - OR a wasps nests if it is young enough  (Cretaceous or younger - oldest known colonial insects)

[DOGSLOVETHESE (OP)]

Thanks for the welcome!
Well, I know this isn't any help but I don't know where its from. I came upon it in a box of rocks that belonged to someone who passed away and I don't know where he got it. It is quite hard. It doesn't flake or crumble at all. I thought maybe some sort of petrified insect thing but the little 'tubes' are so small. You can fit a pin inside them but a pencil point won't go in. Looking at it more closely, I am beginning to wonder if the 'tubes' on top are man made. They are aligned so perfectly. It looks like the holes are in a circular pattern and the holes get larger as the pattern radiates outward. Since I'm on the subject of cool, funky rocks, Here's another from the box that I hope to identify. This baby is pretty heavy and solid. Some kind of coral? It's pretty big, about 5 1/2" tall and 7" wide. Pretty cool paperweight, huh?!

[JimBob]

Hi there again, already!

There are two other possibilities for the first that did not come to mind when I first replied - worm tubes or the burrows of crustacean - shrimp-like critters. It is most likely a limestone. I am not, however, a paleontologist so can't really tell you. We shall wait to see what the Junior "G-Man," frethak, says when he gets back from servitude in Houston. ("G-Man," as in an Arnold Schwarzenegger accent and meaning girly- er, geology-man.) He is a student who has all of this fresh in his feeble brain. My feeble brain is getting very ancient.

And the second set of picts does look like coral. Nice rock.

 

[DOGSLOVETHESE (OP)]

LOL...Yes, I'll wait and see what the "G-man" says. I don't think your brain can be too feeble, that is an interesting thought about the worm holes or crustacean-condos. I'm really becoming more and more captivated with finding an answer. I have scoured the web looking for a picture of something that looks like it and have found nothing. It's gonna make me a little nuts!

[RD]

Here is a link to a somewhat similar "rock with holes" ... http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=22911.0

However the holes on yours (below) look rhomboid, (diamond shaped), rather than circular.

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[frethack]

He is a student who has all of this fresh in his feeble brain. My feeble brain is getting very ancient. 

Dont let JimBob fool you with that "feeble brain" mumbo jumbo.  He has already forgotten more about geology than I will know in the next decade at least. (Besides, according to him, climatologists arent real geologists anyway!)

Coral for sure.  If you can, get some closeups from a side view and a top view.  The corralites look like they are arranged in a hexagonal pattern (six surround each individual polyp), so that would point to the possibility of being a tabulate coral.  There have been a few posted on the forum already...here are the threads.

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=18355.0
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=16123.0

The others are likely from the genus Favosites, but this one does not appear to be.

[Geoman69]

That rock certainly brings the funk.

I'm far, far (far!) from an expert in paleontology, but to my questionably trained eye that looks a little bit like a Receptaculitid:





For bonus points, I'd like to point out that the pattern is a fibonacci spiral, which is pretty much awesome.

[Geoman69]

After digging around my drive, I discovered that I have a shot of one of these things that I took a while back.

[nofollow]

[Nizzle]

Definitely alien...

[RD]

Receptaculites was probably a benthic marine calcareous alga of the Order Dasycladales that lived from the Early Ordovician through the Permian. It has a double spiral radiating pattern of rhombus-shaped plates supported by spindle-like objects called meroms.
Fossils can usually be identified by the intersecting patterns of clockwise and counterclockwise rows of plates or stalk spaces.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Receptaculites


I would like extra points for my use of the word "rhomboid"  [].

[JimBob]

That rock certainly brings the funk.

I'm far, far (far!) from an expert in paleontology, but to my questionably trained eye that looks a little bit like a Receptaculitid:





For bonus points, I'd like to point out that the pattern is a fibonacci spiral, which is pretty much awesome.

It is only extra credit if you capitalize "Fibonacci" - it is a proper name.

[JimBob]

That rock certainly brings the funk.

I'm far, far (far!) from an expert in paleontology, but to my questionably trained eye that looks a little bit like a Receptaculitid:





For bonus points, I'd like to point out that the pattern is a fibonacci spiral, which is pretty much awesome.

It is only extra credit if you capitalize "Fibonacci" - it is a proper name.

By Jove, I think He go it.

But the side view .... ??