A new technique for making serial sections of solitary rugose corals

Taxonomic identification of Paleozoic solitary rugose corals relies heavily on serial sections to determine the ontogenetic development of skeletal structures. Previously, small rugose corals have been difficult to study because their size and curvature make it difficult to serially section them at a right angle to the longitudinal growth axis. In this paper, we describe a newly designed apparatus, with a rotatable clamp to hold the fossil coral. This guarantees easy adjustment of the cutting angle so that serial sections can be made at changing angles that are always at a right angle to the curved longitudinal axis of a rugose coral. In addition, the apparatus allows the distance between consecutive sections to be controlled precisely to mm scales.