Fossil Coral

No, fossil coral isn’t an endangered coral. In the gemstone industry they have shortened agatized fossil coral to fossil coral. Price alone tells you it’s not something that comes from a threatened species. It is coral in a way, but ancient coral, found in the ground after being inundated by silt or something else, not an expert here, some 20 million years ago. Agate replaced the coral. So it's no longer coral.

Fossil coral jasper is another name for fossil coral. It makes sense. Agate is a translucent chalcedony while jasper is opaque chalcedony. There are all kinds of jaspers and agates.

One of my favorite jaspers is leopardskin jasper. And then there’s a reddish orange colored chalcedony, neither agate nor jasper, but plain old carnelian, beloved all the way back to the pharaohs.

Eggshell chalcedony is a beautiful sky-blue chalcedony with surrounding rock included on the bead or cabochon to maximize the amount of blue.

But enough of other agates and jaspers and chalcedonies. Let’s get back to fossil coral. Now that you know it didn’t come for an endangered species and is not rare, you can settle in to admire it. The patterns created by the coral in the stones are unique to each piece. Don’t hesitate to add a fossil coral piece to your jewelry collection.