The Cambrian in South Carolina, US

Paleontology and geology

There is a single outcrop of Cambrian rocks known in South Carolina that contains fossils of a number of species of trilobites, indicating that the rocks formed in a marine environment. What is interesting is that these trilobites lived, died, and were fossilized in what is now Africa. When Africa and North America collided late in the Paleozoic, the site of deposition of these fossils became attached to North America. After the supercontinent of Pangea separated, these trilobite-bearing rocks were left behind and are now exposed as the result of an uplifted pluton in the Batesburg area, northwest of central South Carolina.