fossils.html

Nashville Fossils

If you have found fossils in the Nashville Basin, this page should help you identify them

What you will not find

If you think you have found a dinosaur, you are probably wrong.

Fossils form only if remains are buried in sediment. This happens only under water or in low-lying areas.
During the Paleozoic Era, Nashville was under water most of the time, and animal and plant remains were buried in sediment and formed fossils.
During the Mesozoic Era, however, Nashville was out of the water. Sediment was not deposited. In fact, previously deposited land eroded. Dinosaurs probably lived here, but they didn't leave fossils.
During the Cenozoic Era, sediment was eroded from the hills and deposited in the river valleys. For this reason, Cenozoic fossils are sometimes found in Nashville's river valleys. A saber-tooth cat was found by the Cumberland, and mammoth bones were found by the Harpeth.

What you will find

Aside from these rare exceptions, all of the fossils you will find in Nashville are from the early Paleozoic Ordovician Period.

To find out how we know the age of these fossils, see my stratigraphy exercise.
To find out more about how fossils form, see the excellent exercise in the Paleontological Society's Learning from the Fossil Record.

How can you identify your fossil.?

There are two approaches.

1. by taxon (i.e. by type of animal)

All major invertebrate phyla (large categories of animals) are found in Nashville

Brachiopods - bivalve invertebrates which look like seashells

Bryozoans (generally small colonial animals, which often form tree-like shapes

Mollusks (bivalves, snails, and cephalopods)

Porifora (sponges and their kin)

Cnidaria (corals)

Arthropods (trilobites and ostrocods)

Trace fossils, generally burrows, are also very common. We usually can't tell exactly what kind of animal made them.

Vertebrate fossils are also found. In addition to the recent large vertebrates (saber tooth cats etc) found in river beds, the Paleozoic vertebrate, the conodont is widespread and common.

2. by stratum

There are three major strata exposed in middle Tennessee, and each has distinctive fossils. If you know what stratum your fossil came from it is much easier to identify.

The Stones River Group is exposed in Wilson and Rutherford Counties and in southern and eastern Davidson County.

The Nashville and Maysville Groups are exposed in the rest of Davidson County, Williamson County, and southern Sumner County.

The Fort Payne Formation is exposed at the tops of steep hills and on the Highland Rim.

Home