As the buildings went up along the Highway 150 corridor our fossils sites began to disappear. Perhaps that was good thing because we ran out of storage to house all the fossils we were finding and keeping but it never stopped us from finding other areas to hunt.
We found construction going on where the old Riverchase Country Club used to sit behind Five Guys in Riverchase. It was there, excavation was going on between the hillsides which exposed tons of rocks. It was going to be a site for new homes and for the next year or so we "saved a lot of fossils" from being buried for eternity...what's another million years for those fossils! This location confused the heck out of me as far as sedimentary rock history goes? We were finding Carboniferous plant fossils that were part of a land mass and on this same site we were finding marine impressions of animals that belonged in the ocean? It took me a while to figure it out with the help of the experts? The site was once covered by the ocean. The water receded and formed a mangrove like swamp environment. It later turned into landmass that teemed with plants and animals, all within the Paleozoic/Carboniferous timeline. Here are some of those fossils found on that site. Some of you might be wondering what the quarter is for? It's to show the size of fossils to scale.
Top Pic, Left- Nick is showing a Lepidodendron bark impression...looks like a tire track.
Top Pic, Right- Michael digging into the side of a rock exposure looking for Brachiopods.
Middle Pic- Lyginopteris fern frond, positive/negative shale plate...found near a coal vein.
Pic #1- Lepidodendron/Tylodendron interior impression of tree bark. Pic #2- Artisia Horizontalis- pith casts of the Cordaites tree. Pic #3- Stigmaria- root interior casts of a Lycopod (tree) Pic #4- Crinoid- lily of the sea. Pic #5- Edrioasteroid- Cousin to the starfish. Pic #6- Brachiopods, mollusks from a brackish water environment.
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