Paleontology and geologyOrdovician sedimentary rocks cover a large portion of central Tennessee, in an area called the Nashville Dome. These rocks are primarily limestones deposited in the warm, shallow sea that covered the state during this time. Fossils of brachiopods, bryozoans, and crinoids are abundant in these rocks. Other Ordovician fossils in Tennessee include conodonts, trilobites, bivalves, sponges, and unusual echinoderms such as edrioasteroids. In the middle and later parts of the Ordovician, mountain building to the east (the Taconic Orogeny) caused the edge of the continent to warp downward into a deep-water basin. Sediments eroding off the rising mountains were carried westward into the sea, eventually filling the basin and pushing the shoreline toward the west. |
Education and Exhibits | Resources
Education and Exhibits
Virtual Exhibits (showing 1 of 1 listings)
The Gray Fossil Site: Located in the Valley-and-Ridge province in East Tennessee, near the community of Gray, this site includes vertebrate bones, aquatic invertebrates, leaf imprints, organic debris, botanicals, compressed wood, charcoal, and more. This web exhibit offers images and detailed explanations of the site's features.
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Resources
Field Guides (showing 1 of 1 listings)
Ordovician fossils of the Nashville, Tennessee region: Site lists the reported fossils from Middle and Upper Ordovician rocks of the Nashville Dome in central Tennessee.
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