Artist & Historian
Fossils and Formations
Below the Surface of the Earth
In its earliest usage, "fossil" meant simply "things dug up". It took on its current meaning related to the mineralised remains of organic life in the late 18th Century. Fossils serve as markers of time and life found beneath the surface of the Earth. As this page develops, I will show how fossils are used as key evidence in palaeontological studies and highlight interesting finds and stories.
The Cincinnati Museum Center is home to an excellent natural history museum, and their collections of Ordovician fossils (485-440 Million Years Ago) are some of the best in the world. During the Ordovician Period, the region was mostly covered by seas, so many of the fossils collected are sea life and shells, such as brachiopods. The region was also home to some very large trilobites.
Read an article on the CMC blog about the formation of the Cincinnati Arch here. This uplifted formation is the reason we see so many fossils from the Ordovician period in Cincinnati region.
They also have some really nice dinosaurs!
These sauropods are from a much more recent geological era,
the Late Jurassic Period (200-145 Million Years Ago).
Photo credit: CMC
The Geologic Time Scale published by the Geological Society of America is available on their website.
In 2021, I took my first serious fossil hunting trip to Lake Cumberland, in Kentucky. This ongoing fieldwork has been indispensible in shaping my understanding of geology, stratigraphy, Deep Time, and the nature of the Earth.
