The vision of this adventure started about two weeks ago when I first heard about the tiny prehistoric marine creatures called Graptolites . I am always very intrigued about anything that wiggled in the warm ocean that once covered my home state of Alabama . After seeing photos of them in a book, I knew that I must go see them for myself. Of course Monte was more than glad to head out on the road again. This time though we had some company of the feathered sort. She brought along a baby Mocking Bird that her daughter, Katelyn, had rescued from a dog. We all chirped and peeped all the way to the site ...

Report by Michelle

The collecting site was on a roadcut with a steep bank, mostly overgrown but still wielding a few bald spots.

It was very exciting to see the shale just waiting to be peeled open like the layers of a big buttermilk biscuit.

We picked our spots to begin and jumped right into prying out shale layers.

We found out quickly that we couldn't wear gloves on this dig. The shale is very delicate and you must be able to feel what you are doing to prevent breaking it.

Immediately we started seeing graptolite fossils. Graptolites are an extinct group of colonial organisms that lived from the Cambrian to the Carboniferous period. The ones we found are from the Middle Ordovician Period. Graptolite is literally translated: "writing on rock". This one is of the genus Didymograptus. They call it the "tuning fork" graptolite because of its shape.

 

We started out breaking open the layers as we collected them one at a time which was very time consuming. We had plans to do some Alabama sightseeing before sunset so we decided to change our strategy. The fossils were prolific in the layers so we put some shale in our buckets, sight unseen. Opening them later would yield many fun surprises!

Another well preserved Didymograptus.

 

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