Coral skeleton construction; a physiochemically dominated process

Stony corals calcify by nucleation and growth of aragonite fibers on seed nuclei packets produced by the coral. Aragonite fibers arrange into polyciystalline bundles that lift the coral upward duringfiber growth, entrapping fibrils and tissue sheets, from the undersurface of the calicoblastic epithelium, between growing crystals. The morphology and arrangement of the aragonite fibers are controlled by inorganic kinetic factors of crystal growth, akin to inorganically precipitated marine cements. Corals selectively planeoff extending fibers on completed structures and stop fiber growth. Similar skeletal construction and maintenance mechanisms are found in other phyla.