Paleontology in Massachusetts

[1] During the early part of the Paleozoic era, Massachusetts was covered by a warm shallow sea, where brachiopods and trilobites would come to live.

During the Cretaceous period the area now occupied by the Elizabeth Islands and Martha's Vineyard were a coastal plain vegetated by flowers and pine trees at the edge of a shallow sea.

During the Cretaceous period the area now occupied by the Elizabeth Islands and Martha's Vineyard were a coastal plain near a shallow sea.

However, since there are no Mesozoic strata nearby to preserve them the footprints inspiring the story may have been observed elsewhere in New England, like Massachusetts, where they are quite abundant.

[3] Among the earliest major fossil discoveries in Massachusetts occurred during the spring of 1802, when Pliny Moody uncovered a piece of reddish sandstone with bird-like three toed footprints while ploughing on his father's farm in South Hadley.

At the time, the town of Greenfield Massachusetts was laying paving when residents noticed footprints on the sandstone slabs that resembled those of turkeys.

The rocks used in the project had been excavated at Turners Falls, and this location would turn out to be the most productive dinosaur tracksite in the Connecticut Valley.

[5] Later that year, the fossil footprints discovered while paving in Greenfield were brought to the attention of local naturalist and physician James Deane, whose curiosity was piqued.

[7] The next year Hitchcock wrote a scientific paper on the fossil footprints of the Connecticut Valley; he thought the tracks were made by giant birds.

[8] Later, in 1843, James Deane began publishing on the Connecticut Valley track fossils with a paper in the American Journal of Science.

Smith noticed fossil bones uncovered in the process of blasting for renovations to the water shops of the US Armory at Springfield, Massachusetts.

[11] Later that year, the Appleton Cabinet was built by Amherst College to house the dinosaur tracks collected and studied by Edward Hitchcock.

[18] Six years later, a fire consumed Williston Hall at Mount Holyoke College, destroying the bones of Podokesaurus holyokensis.