On Friday, November 27, 2020, seven BPS members and guests went to a working strip mine in Jefferson County to collect fossils from the Pottsville formation of the Pennsylvanian period.  The fossils collected today originated in a warm, steamy, oxygen-rich environment and grew to towering heights.  Some of the fossils found are pith casts, formed when sediments filled the hollow center of a stem and later hardened/mineralized into rock.  Other fossils are imprints and show beautiful details of fern-like foliage.

 

Some of the identified fossils found today include cala

On Saturday, March 21, 2020, a baker’s dozen members and guests of BPS went to a site that we’d never visited.  A tip from a member’s neighbor and a scouting outing was awarded by permission to collect in a strip mine in Jefferson County.  The spoil piles that held fossils were from the Pennsylvanian period – Coal Age fossils that were formed as warm moist coastal swamps gave way to periodic flooding and sedimentation during continental drift changes.  Interestingly, similarities between Pennsylvanian coal deposits in the Black Warrior Basin and those in South America indicate that they w