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E-Letter responses to:

reports:
Jaroslaw Stolarski, Anders Meibom, Radoslaw Przenioslo, and Maciej Mazur
A Cretaceous Scleractinian Coral with a Calcitic Skeleton
Science 2007; 318: 92-94 [Abstract] [Full text] [PDF]
*E-Letters: Submit a response to this article

Published E-Letter responses:

[Read E-Letter] Fine Structure Can Survive Mineral Replacement
David C. Campbell   (10 December 2007)

Fine Structure Can Survive Mineral Replacement 10 December 2007
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David C. Campbell,
instructor/postdoc
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA

Respond to this E-Letter:
Re: Fine Structure Can Survive Mineral Replacement

Although the total evidence cited in this Report ("A Cretaceous scleractinian coral with a cacitic skeleton," by J. Stolarski et al., 5 October 2007, p. 92) clearly supports an originally calcite mineralogy, it is possible for fine skeletal structures to survive a mineralogical replacement in fossils. Calcitic replacements of aragonitic mollusk shells often retain features of the original aragonitic microstructure (1). I have even observed microstructure traces in silica-replaced aragonitic shells from the Eocene of central South Carolina.

David C. Campbell

Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA.

Reference

1. J. G. Carter, Skeletal Biomineralization (Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1990).

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)