In the mid to late 2000, there was a lot of construction going on along the Highway 150 corridor. It is a hilly area, excavators were clearing and cutting into the hillsides exposing tons of sedimentary stone. The many times I drove that route I would see the piles of rocks on the construction site. So I stopped at the site where Cadence bank is located.
I got out of my vehicle to look at a pile of rocks and to my astonishment I see fossils in the pile and all around that particular area! I grabbed a few to show my nephews and decided I'd bring them back there the next day! For over a two and half year period we hauled out a lot of fossilized plants from that site and all along that corridor! At the time I didn't really have much knowledge of what we were finding but knew that Alabama was a tropical-like swamp forest that teemed with insects, amphibians, reptiles and plants. What we were finding is a small representation of that type environment.
The first picture shows my nephews hunting along the excavated area, behind them is Zaxby's building site and the Salvation Army Store already built as well as the Ramada Inn site. The second picture is one of the fern fossil specimens found on the site as well as others. The third picture is called a Fern Rachis, it's the pithy part of the fern tree. The third picture are 3D Calamite end pieces. The fourth picture are bark impressions of the Lepidodendron tree, known as the "scale tree".
