Kentucky and Tennessee are rich in sedimentary rock-bearing fossil beds like this one.
With layers of exposed sedimentary rock dating to to the Paleozoic era, Kentucky and Tennessee are both fantastic places to find fossils of all kinds. Identification of these fossils is a little harder. Fortunately, there are plenty of online and offline resources for fossil identification.
Common Fossils
Frequently found fossils in the Kentucky and Tennessee areas include foraminifera, coral and brachiopod shellfish. These fossils formed in the shallow sea that used to cover most of both states.
Kentucky Fossil Beds
Along the Ohio River and in exposed outcrops of the Appalachians and its foothills, fossil seekers find individual fossils as well as enormous slabs of rock and bedrock covered in at least 600 species of fossils. The most commonly found fossils here are colony and horn corals, early bivalves, brachiopods, cephalopods and trilobites.
Falls of the Ohio State Park
Just across the river from Louisville, Kentucky, fossil seekers can find one of the best and most diverse spots to find fossils in the world. The Falls of the Ohio State Park in Clarksville, Indiana, is located at an exposed section of the Ohio River bed where a fantastic array of 350-million-year-old fossils rests. The Interpretive Center is an invaluable information resource for fossil hunters.
Kentucky Fossil Resources Online
Its rich and easily accessible fossil beds makes Kentucky an ideal study site for fossil archaeologists. The state-funded Kentucky Geological Survey at the University of Kentucky is focused on mapping and documenting the fossil record in Kentucky.
Tennessee Fossils
Tennessee fossils are as diverse as those of Kentucky, but they are usually are not as easily accessible. Because Tennessee and Kentuckey were part of the same inland sea, Tennessee's fossils cover roughly the same species range as Kentucky's.
Eastern Tennessee Fossils
In Eastern Tennessee, fossils are more modern. The Gray Fossil Site, located in Washington County near Gray, Tennessee, has invertebrate, vertebrate and even mammalian fossils. It appears these fossils may not have accumulated here through natural death, but rather were deposited through some geological action.
Tags: Kentucky Tennessee, easily accessible, Eastern Tennessee, Falls Ohio, Falls Ohio State, find fossils
