Paleontology in Virginia
During the late 18th century, Thomas Jefferson directed his scholarly attention to local fossils.
[2] Although present, the state's Cambrian rocks preserve very few fossils and no documented individual deposit has proven a fertile collecting ground.
[3] Other Ordovician life of Virginia included the brachiopods, bryozoans, corals, echinoderms, and sponges that were preserved in Scott County.
Shenandoah county also preserved a wide variety of ancient life in addition to its big brachiopods.
[4] On land, the early Mesozoic plants of Virginia included Equisetales, gymnosperms, Cycadeles, cycads, and conifers.
[8] Dinosaurs lived in Virginia and left behind so many tracks at what is now the Culpeper Stone Quarry of Stevensburg that it has been compared to a ballroom.
Another fossil site of similar age, the Solite Quarry, straddles the border between Virginia and North Carolina.
[9] At Leaksville Junction, near the border with North Carolina, dinosaur footprints have been discovered in the Late Triassic Cow Branch Formation.
[10] At least three fossil sites have been discovered for the Late Triassic Manassas Sandstone in Fairfax County, Virginia.
Dinosaur tracks of the ichnogenus Grallator have been reported from this unit as have the ichnogenera Apatopus, Brachychirotherium, and Chirotherium, which were left by other kinds of archosaurs.
The Late Triassic dinosaur footprints in the Balls Bluff Sandstone are of such number and quality that the unit is considered one of the best sources of these fossils in the world.
[13] For a 30 million year interval spanning the Late Triassic-Early Jurassic boundary, the Culpeper basin was an extensive lake.
Other kinds of fish present in Early Jurassic Virginia included coelacanths and palaeoniscids.
[1] Local sea level rose and fell significantly during the ensuing Tertiary period of the Cenozoic era.
Miocene vertebrates of Virginia included sharks and whales, which left teeth and bones respectively in York County.
[16] Between 1775 and 1780, Thomas Jefferson conferred with leaders of the Delaware Indians in Virginia about the fossils of Big Bone Lick, of what is now Kentucky.
[17] Sometime around 1920, Early Jurassic dinosaur tracks were discovered during renovations on the grounds of Oak Hill while sandstone was being excavated to line its terraces and walkways.
[18] Later, a scientific paper published in 1956 reported the presence of 17 species of nautiloid across 10 genera from a unit at the transition between the Cambrian and Ordovician in Virginia.
This site preserved abundant remains of Early Jurassic fish like semionotids, palaeoniscids, and coelacanths.
