Youngest fossils in Appalachia being uncovered
By Mark Poff, WLOS photojournalist & WLOS staff
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WASHINGTON COUNTY, Tennessee (WLOS) — More than 20 years ago, construction workers building a road for the Tennessee Department of Transportation accidentally uncovered a scientific discovery that has paleontologists from all over the world flocking to Appalachia.
In 2000, the TDOT was rebuilding an intersection in Gray, Tennessee, and stumbled upon an ancient deposit of pond sediment.
Since then, East Tennessee State University’s Gray Fossil Site & Museum (GFSM) has become a prime location where fossils from 5 million years ago, before the Ice Age, have been found.
“In about 20 years we’ve found over 30,000 fossil specimens, and that’s just the ones we’ve counted, and it’s just the ones we’ve excavated,” said David Moscato, paleontologist and science communicator at Gray Fossil Site & Museum.
Those include bones from Mastodons and Saber Tooth cats, among other animals, that once roamed this area.
“The fossils in this exhibit all represent ancient animals and plants that have been found at the Gray Fossil Site,” Moscato said. “These are all organisms that lived in this ancient pond that was home to tapirs and alligators, rhinos, saber tooth cats and mastodons.”
The site is a sinkhole that was present about 5 million years ago and formed the pond. The animals that lived in the forest surrounding it likely used the pond as a watering hole.
In the paleontological prep lab at GFSM, ETSU paleontology staff, students and graduate students clean, strengthen and, when possible, reassemble the fossil remains discovered at the Gray Fossil Site.
Finding fossils that are 5 million years old is particularly unique to the part of the country where ETSU sits.
“Gray is really important because it’s one of the only sites of this age in Appalachia,” said Sam Wright, ETSU graduate student. “Most of the fossils you find in Appalachia are from much older, so they’re not vertebrates; they’re marine invertebrate fossils. So, that’s what makes this site even more unique and rare for the area — we’re actually getting things that are much closer in time to the present.”
“We often make comparisons between prehistoric life and modern life — what species are missing in an ecosystem today that used to be around in the past?” Wright said.
The staff and students’ work is nowhere near done, either.
“We’ve excavated a very small percentage of the actual fossil site,” Moscato said.
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