Crystal nucleation and growth of spherulites demonstrated by coral skeletons and phase-field simulations.

ABSTRACT: Spherulites are radial distributions of acicular crystals, common in biogenic, geologic, and synthetic systems, yet exactly how spherulitic crystals nucleate and grow is still poorly understood. To investigate these processes in more detail, we chose scleractinian corals as a model system, because they are well known to form their skeletons from aragonite (CaCO₃) spherulites, and because a comparative study of crystal structures across coral species has not been performed previously. We observed that all 12 diverse coral species analyzed here exhibit plumose spherulites in their skeletons, with well-defined centers of calcification (CoCs), and crystalline fibers radiating from them. In 7 of the 12 species, we observed a skeletal structural motif not observed previously: randomly

SUBMITTER: Sun CY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7116570 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature