Northern Kentucky is a meca for Late Ordovician fossils. Anywhere you see that grey shale and rock, you have marine invertebrate fossils.
This blog entry is the first of a series on my adventures in one such community – Independence, Kentucky. I’ll not reveal the exact locations of the sites I highlight in this blog. Every good fossil hunter scouts out his/her own sites. This is the story of the sites I found and of what I found in this developing Kentucky town. I hope you’ll enjoy it.
Part 1 is about a site I found that has a large bed of meter-length sea floor ripple marks. The layers here appear to be Fairview Formation. Much has been written about these ripples. But there is nothing like standing on what looks like the Ordovician sea floor. It’s like snorkeling off any present-day beach. The ripples are the shape of the sea bottom after plenty of wave action. My sea floor is 440 million years old. I guess the only word to describe it is awesome.
The site is gone now. A building sits on the locality. Here are some photos of the site the day I was there. I showed the photos to our University of Cincinnati Geology Department professors and I have to assume they had a chance to go out there and see it before the construction began. A meter/yard stick is in some of the photos for scale.
That’s all for Part 1 of Independence, Kentucky. Stay tuned. Bill
I've been fossil hunting since 1989 and an active member of the Dry Dredgers since 1991. The Dry Dredgers has had the biggest positive influence on my fossil hunting. What I have learned from my fellow members - both amateur and professional, has made a simple recreational hobby become both productive and much more enjoyable.
Latest posts by Bill Heimbrock (see all)
- Fossil Hunting in Independence, KY: Part 2 - January 3, 2016
- Fossil Hunting in Independence, KY: Part 1 - December 26, 2015
- An Unofficial Dry Dredgers Field Trip: A Farm in Greenup County, Kentucky, Saturday, August 22, 2015 - December 9, 2015