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Branching Heliophyllum (Devonian rugose corals) from New York and Ohio

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2016

William A. Oliver Jr.  and
James E. Sorauf
William A. Oliver Jr.
Affiliation:
United States Geological Survey, United States National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. 20560
James E. Sorauf
Affiliation:
State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton 13902–6000
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Abstract

Solitary species of Heliophyllum are the most common form of the genus but branching and massive colonies do occur, especially in Middle Devonian strata of eastern North America. Heliophyllum delicatum n. sp. offsets laterally and has a dendroid, broad bushy growth form. The species is known only from western and west-central New York and appears to be limited to the lower part of the Deep Run Shale Member of the Moscow Formation (middle Givetian); specimens are common within this restricted geographic and stratigraphic range. The skeleton of H. delicatum was poorly designed for the common coral environments of the Devonian, but seems to have been well adapted to muddy, carbonate-poor conditions where its thin skeletal elements required less calcium carbonate and its unsupported branches were not subject to vigorous water movement.

Heliophyllum stewarti n. sp. is based on a single specimen from the Tenmile Creek Dolomite (middle Givetian) in northwestern Ohio. The colony is phaceloid but each branch is an astreoid cluster without walls between individual corallites. In addition, the apparent protocorallite is turbinate with a larger diameter than any of the ceratoid offsets although offset lengths are several times that of the protocorallite.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Paleontology , Volume 68 , Issue 6 , November 1994 , pp. 1183 - 1201
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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