if you are in the area with kids dont miss this

[strollingbones]

splashScreen

around 2000 the hwy department was putting in a new road when they discovered fossils...at first it was just a few but then...suddenly tennessee is sitting on the 2nd knows micocene (?) dig. this dates it between 4.5 to 7 million years...see homepage for the science stuff:

a shout out to general shale...who donated all the bricks and did all the design including this entrace:

 

[strollingbones]

the site is being dug faster than the on site lab can go threw the dirt with dry screening and wet screening:

on your right is the elephant pit...down at the corner...the left...covered is the rhino pit..so far 4 males and one unborn fetus have been found there..

the elephant pit keeps filling up with water so they are not working it right now:

more of the rhino pit...it is dug out with trowels that start at 2 inches and go to microtrowels of 1/8 or so of an inch:

the yellow bags are 80 to 100 lbs of dirt, the lab cannot keep up with the diggers..see the dark mounds..that is called "spoils" dirt that was dug to make room for this or that...

 

[strollingbones]

now there is a ton of stuff for younger kids to do.....and neat things to see...unfortunately a lot of the larger fossils were back in a darkened area and my flash was not that strong but here is what i did get:

 

[RodISHI]

Beautiful sculptures thank you. I'll keep it in mind if we get back down to Tennessee to go see.

When I first started the sand and gravel here an older gentleman called me. He said they found Mastedon [sic] tusk when they open up the pits in and around Des Moines by the Des Moines River. He said he had put them out along his driveway and they deteriorated. It's a shame they did not preserve the finds back then. It's amazing to see such history. I picked up fossils and arrowheads from places that had been excavated down ten feet and more.