Field Excursions: Discover ancient fossils at Gray Fossil Site

21.05.12

The Gray Fossil Site was first discovered by Tennessee Department of Transportation highway crews during the realignment and widening of State Route 75. State officials, geologists and paleontologists were called in to investigate unusual clay deposits that turned up during the highway project.

Within months, the site was determined to have been the location of a semicircular sinkhole that once harbored a pond environment.

Miocene Age fossils are almost unknown east of the Mississippi, and experts say the sinkhole that preserved a fantastic number of extinct animal remains—a shovel-tusked elephant, a semiaquatic potbellied rhino, a sabertooth cat, a red panda and even a camel without humps—has created a record of an entire ecosystem.

Ultimately, State Route 75 was realigned to protect the Gray Fossil Site, and in August 2007, the East Tennessee State University and General Shale Brick Natural History Museum and Visitor Center at the Gray Fossil Site opened.

Source: Nooga.com