Today my sweet wife and I went a few hours drive to a fossil museum in the small community of Gray, Tennessee, USA.  About 10 yearss ago a road crew was working to straighten a road in this rural area when digging and drilling revealed an unusual dark soil below and in that soil were little bones.  They stopped and called in a paleontologist.

From that came the Gray Fossil Site, a significant discovery for the eastern USA.  Found were not dinosaurs but animals and reptiles from the later Myocene period (perhaps some earlier deeper down).   Some remains were recovered almost intact, such as a rhino animal will all bones except one hoof.

 

The photo shows the first dig pit in the side of the mound and a recent test hole with dirt screen.    The Gray site area has given up at least 2 new specimens to science.

 

These photos are posted for fun and possible interest by viewers here.

 

Thank you for sharing this find my brother.

Inside the museum is stuff to see and also a working lab and an expanding storage area.  This is the storage area with specimens housed in fire proof safes. 

The skull is a cast of a prehistoric tapir.  Unlike stony fossils normally seen, the geology conditons at Gray did not have silica needed to convert and replace bones with stone. The bones found here are actaully bones, very, very old and very fragile bones.  When removed from the dark soil, the bones are kept wet and in time are stabalized with a plastic material.   Originals are kept in safe storage for research and displays are made of casts from those.

So, these are not gallery photos but perhaps you will find some of it interesting. 

     TomDart.

A great find my friend.

Thank you for sharing my friend.

It is interesting, and it reminded me of a very recent find that has yielded a large number of mammoth bones and complete skeletons. The one that piqued my interest was a prehistoric bison skull that measured seven feet across the horns and stood quite a bit higher than present-day bisons.

Wayne

I appreciate seeing your images. I was fortunate to witness excavations at Pompeii over a two year period while stationed in Naples. As a child, fossils were fascinating to me. So nice to see evidence of the earth's history.

Hmm... the Myocene period.

Was that before or after Adam and Eve..?

 

Just kidding, Tom. Fossils and excavations, ruins and all things ancient and historical have always fascinated me. Interesting stuff!

Here is one more photo...nice white balance here! (half tungsten and half daylight)

 

This is the working lab.  Students and others were off doing other things except the one man who was trying to reassemble a turtle shell.

I had great dreams  of becoming a paleontologist when I was in high school and later, I thought paleopathology would be my goal. My father, who was a geologist, asked me if I thought there was a future in being a paleontolgist. That killed it for me. There aren't a lot of thriving, well-off paleontologists in this world. :-)  I love these shots and I wish I had gone ahead and pursued my dreams.

There is a state university fairly close to the site.   Class rooms for students as well as other facilities are being built on site.

As I understand it, the university did not have a full fledged department of paleontology prior to the discovery.  Some very fortunate and quite qualified peleontologist was invited to establish that department at the university. For that man, a  best dream come true was his.  Now, there are several professors in the department and all is growing.

Stunning captures Tom.Your white balance was perfect for the capture in the room.

May we all persue our dreams.

Tom, FYI...my daughter and I got a call today from a business owner we know who said there was either a baby hawk or baby owl in his parking lot that we should come look at.  I was horrified... I'm not a rapture rehabber and I was worried about how good we could care for it until we found a qualified center to take it to.  When we got there, we were happy to hear that some kids came along and scared it - it flew up in a tree to hide so I am guessing it wasn't in need of help at that point.  Sure was glad I didn't need to figure out handfeeding a rapture! :-)