lycopod

A trip to a non-working mine site to explore spoil piles for invertebrate fossils was on the menu for BPS's August field trip. The mining company, headquartered in Tuscaloosa county generously offered us the opportunity to explore at this site. A long, hot day on a moonscape was nevertheless a great trip, yielding some beautiful specimens.

We met with the mining engineer who gave us a quick overview of the mining operations, then let us go onto the piles to do our hunting. We hunted until the heat got to us and it was time to seek air-conditioning.

April 30, 2000 - Pennsylvanian Fossils, Walker Co, AL

Submitted by Ron Buta on Sun, 04/30/2000 - 11:00pm

Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa, Alabama

The New River Mine is a surface mine which was spotted by Jim Lacefield in early February this year, and shortly thereafter Jim and I scouted the site out. As expected, the site included plant fossils, but one difference compared to other sites that Jim noticed was an abundance of fossils of Artisia, the pith of the gymnospermous tree known as Cordaites. The only other sites where I have seen Artisia fossils are the Kimberly surface mine (see