Ridgetop.html

Fossil Hunting in Ridgetop

Directions:

Get on I-65 heading North (to Louisville)
Get off at exit 98 ( rt 31w, Ridgetop), and turn left (to Springfield)
Go west a few miles to the junction with rt.41. Turn right.
Drive seven miles on rt 41. You will climb a long hill with a high road cut on the left. This is our site.
When you get to the top of the hill, turn around, and head down slowly stopping at several places.

The long hill that you have just gone up is the boundary between the Nashville Basin and the Highland Rim, and the stratum we are looking at is the Fort Payne Formation, the stratum which makes the Highland Rim high.

It looks quite a lot like the Fort Payne exposure we saw at Tally's Bluff in Warner Parks. Notice how shaley it is.

What will you find?

Fossils here are not as common as they are either in the Murfreesboro or the Nashville site on Dickerson Pike, but if you hunt you will find fossils that are quite different from either of the other two sites.

Crinoids: You will find a lot of crinoid stems. This is the little fossil commonly called "Indian money" by school children. Crinoid stems are called "Indian money" because they look vaguely like the wampum beads made by New England tribes out of clam shells. As far as I know, crinoid stems were never used by mid-south native peoples.

Brachiopods:

I have not yet been able to identify them. I'll post their identities when I do.

Trace Fossils? I have also found what may be trace fossils

and one fossil, which I can't identify at all.