Kentucky Fossil ( over 400,000,000 years old )

Kentucky’s State Fossil is a brachiopod. Brachiopods are fossil shells, from animals that lived in ancient seas. Most are now extinct. Although they resemble clams, brachiopods were a different group of animals. Hundreds of different types of brachiopods can be found in Kentucky. Because brachiopods can be found in rocks throughout Kentucky, we know that Kentucky was once covered by oceans.

This specimen, which I found in shale near Mount Washington, Kentucky, seems to be typical of the brachiopods found in areas once covered by shallow seas. This one is small, about the circumference of a U.S. Quarter. When handling the specimen it is hard to believe that it is over four-hundred-million years old!

Despite their unassuming character, the brachiopods constitute one of the most important and abundant groups of Paleozoic marine organisms. They diversified into a number of different morphologies and even participated in the build-up of ancient reefs. Certainly in terms of numbers of fossil remains they are the most numerous of any Paleozoic organism. Fossil brachiopods are a favorite subject for paleontologists because of their diversity, and usefulness in stratigraphic correlation.