Agatized fossil coral agate.
As Florida's state stone, Agatized Coral is the product of a 20-30 million year process through which the coral evolved from the skeleton of tiny ocean animals. As the silica in the ocean water hardens, it replaces the limy corals with a form of quartz known as chalcedony. Living corals are composed of individual polyp animals which harbor symbiotic algae, called zooxanthellae, within their tissues giving them a variety of colors. Most of the agatized coral found today in the state lived in the vast Eocene seas which covered Florida 35-40 million years ago. These corals would have remained sealed there subterraneously, for eternity, were it not for Florida's repeated glaciations exhuming these semi-precious anomalies of water and time.
11" tall x 11" wide x 11" deep
