Hall graduated with honors in 1832, received his master's degree in 1833, and remained at Rensselaer to teach chemistry and later geology.

Working together, the survey staff developed a stratigraphy for New York and set a precedent for naming stratigraphic divisions based on local geography.

Hall had built a solid reputation and was to devote the rest of his life to stratigraphic geology and invertebrate paleontology.

[2] Hall built a laboratory in Albany, New York, which became an important center of study and training for aspiring geologists and paleontologists.

[3] Among his many works, James Hall identified that stromatolite fossils discovered at Petrified Sea Gardens, a site near Saratoga Springs, New York that is now also a National Historic Landmark, were originally organic.

In 1850 Hall participated in a geological survey of northern Michigan and Wisconsin, where he identified the first fossil reefs ever found in North America.

In addition, Hall wrote more than 30 other books, published over 1000 works,[5] and contributed sections to several federal and state publications on geology.

At the age of 85 he traveled to St. Petersburg to attend the International Geological Congress and also participate in an expedition to the Ural Mountains.

[9] A comprehensive listing of the 1062 publications of James Hall was published in 2017 by Horowitz et al. in the Bulletins of American Paleontology.