Maysville roadcut

The Maysville roadcut, located in northeastern Kentucky, features upper Ordovician rock and fossils.

[1] Maysville provides an opportunity to observe the stratigraphy of the formations present of the Ordovician time period.

The roadcut is made up of three different formations: the Kope, Fairview, and Bellevue in ascending order.

[1] There are a wide variety of invertebrate fossils that can be found at the Maysville roadcut, including trilobites, cephalopods, crinoids, gastropods, brachiopods, bryozoans.

The Ordovician was a time when the land in northeastern Kentucky was covered by a warm, shallow sea.

It is the oldest formation present from the late Ordovician period at Maysville and dates to approximately 460-450 million years ago.

The Kope Formation is the easiest to access at the Maysville roadcut and can be climbed readily with proper hiking equipment.

Crinoid stems are abundant both as stacked fragments within a rock or individual discs lying within the sediment.

This formation comprises many different fossils mostly found in abundant large slabs of limestone.

Cephalopods are very abundant and are larger in size than those found in the Kope Formation, because of the increase in food availability for these predators following the late Cambrian.

Much of North America was underwater during the Ordovician period, therefore the Bellevue formation was formed from shallow water deposits consisting mostly of shale.

This location in particular is home to the amateur fossil collecting and geologist association, the Dry Dredgers.

Overview of the Maysville roadcut showing all three formations present.
Fossilized brachiopods found in the Kope Formation. Various sizes and shapes are present. Specimens in image were collected in the middle of the formation.
Fossilized trilobites found in the Kope Formation. A fragment of a prone Isotelus trilobite is pictured (left). Multiple fragments of possibly different trilobites are also pictured (right).
Fragment of a fossilized cephalopod collected near the bottom of the Kope Formation.
Part of a fossilized crinoid stem from the Fairview Formation.
Fossilized crinoid stem from Fairview Formation. Image displays stem, arms, and pinnules.
A slab of sea hash from the Bellevue formation. Within the sea hash many crinoid discs can be observed.
A large fragment of a crinoid stem, collected from the bottom of the Bellevue Formation.