coralloid or ???

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coralloid or ???

Postby bigredfoote » Aug 20, 2013 12:54 am

I was told a few years ago in another cave that this type of formation were "aragonite anthodites". When I look up anthodites they are hollow quills. Though these formations could develop into a set of quills someday, they seem to usually be singular. The formation I am looking for a name for are always more macrocrystalline and do not appear to have ever been hollow (so not really helictites). This is a cross between popcorn and helictites, but with little/no water, and not quite either formation. Thanks for any confirmation on "corraloid" or other name.

Jen.
Last edited by bigredfoote on Aug 20, 2013 1:00 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: coralloid or ???

Postby bigredfoote » Aug 20, 2013 12:55 am

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Re: coralloid or ???

Postby baa43003 » Aug 20, 2013 3:40 pm

Jen, since coralloid is a "catch-all term describing a variety of nodular, globular, botryoidal, or coral-like speleothems," you probably can't go wrong with calling that a coralloid. Now which morphological variety it is is another question. Knobstone? Globularite? Clusterite?

Are there more like it?

Bonny
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Re: coralloid or ???

Postby bigredfoote » Aug 26, 2013 10:22 pm

Image
Lots of them, this area even had some with multiple arms. Some seem more crystal-like, some more popcorn like. Some of these even had frostwork on the ends.

I think I'll call them coralloids from now on, just not sure whether it goes under calcite, gypsum, or aragonite in places where they catergorize inventory like that.
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