Directions:

• Take I-24 east to the intersection with 840.  Exit onto 840 toward Murfreesboro and Lebanon.
• Drive on 840 one exit to Rt. 41 (New Nashville Highway, the extention of Murfreesboro Pike in Nashville), and exit toward Murfreesboro.
• Drive on Rt 41 to the intersection with Thompson Lane.  Turn right.
• Cross the bridge over the railroad tracks and immediately turn left on a road marked "to Old Nashville Highway"
• this road loops around and dead ends on the old Nashville Highway.
• Turn left on Old Nashville Highway and drive until you pass the entrance to the Stones river Battlefield.
• Shortly after this you will see piles of rock debris on your right and a sign to General Rosecrans headquarters.
• You can park on the left in General Rosecrans' parking lot.

These piles of debris come from the quarry shortly behind them.  The piles are quite safe for children.  the quarry, now filled with water, is not.
 
 
 
 
 

What you will find:

The stratum exposed in Rutherford and Wilson Counties is the Stones River Group which was deposited in the middle of the Ordovician Period, about 460 million years ago.  The fossils you will find here are small invertebrates.

The commonest are:

Ostrocods:  small shrimp-like animals in bivalve shells.  Unlike mollusk shells, ostrocod shells are made of chiton (like fingernail or insect shells).  Sometimes you find these shells intact, dark and shiny.  Although ostrocods are found in other strata, they are more common here than anywhere else.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Trace fossils:  These burrows of invertebrates which lived in the mud at the bottom of the sea are very common, and very typical of the Stones River Group
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Brachiopods:  These shelled animals look somewhat like mollusks but are quite different inside.  Different kinds are common throughout

• Pianodema

• Strophomena

Bryozoans:  these colonial animals are closely related the brachiopods.  They are common throughout all the Ordovician strata of middle Tennessee.  The bryozoans of the Stones River Group are generally thin and fragile looking, some in a tree like formation, others in thin sheets.  Identifying bryozoans is very difficult without examining thin sections under a microscope.

Mollusks:  I occasional find a bivalve mollusk or a cephalopod at this location.  Gastropods (snails), however are the most common find.
 

Lophospira.
 
 

Hormotoma
 
 

Crinoids:Crinoid are echinoderms (relatives of starfish).  Most commonly I find sections of the stems (commonly called "Indian money".
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Trilobites:Trilobites are a type of arthropod (relative of crabs and insects) which lived in the Paleozoic Era.  they are not common in middle Tennessee.  I have, however, found one at this site.