LBL FOSSIL BEACH EarthCache
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(not chosen)
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
This Earthcache will bring you to a shoreline along an island in Honker Bay just off Land Between the Lake's Bobcat Point. Fossil Beach is accessible by two routes: 1) a 1.5 mile round trip watercraft excursion starting from the Honker Bay boat ramp (Open: March 16-October 31) or 2) a 1.5 mile roundtrip hike during the limited "dry" season (winter) starting at Bocat Point parking area.
TASKS
1) Search the shoreline for samples of limestone rock containing fossil. Describe the fossil(s) as best as you can, i.e. type, size, and shape. If you see more than one, which type is predominate in the limestone sample.
2) Based on the types of fossils that you discovered, determine whether or not the rock along the shoreline is St. Louis or Warsaw Limestone.
3) Optional (but greatly appreciated): Take and log a picture (and your group) standing along the shoreline.
LBL GEOLOGY
LBL is an interior peninsula within, but at the western edge of the Western Highland Rim of Tennessee or the Mississippian (Pennyroyal) Plateau of Kentucky. The bedrock is cherty limestone of the Mississippian Period (354 - 323 million years ago) covered with fossils of an ancient sea. Early, during this time, LBL was south of the equator, covered by shallow tropical seas. Later, during the late Mississipian, tidal deltas and costal plains alternated with periods of enudating seas. Surface exposures or rock are uncommon except along the major waterways, such as riverbanks and creekbeds.
Two distinct Missippian Period limestones are present in this portion of LBL - St. Louis and the Warsaw. St. Louis Limestone consists of nodules and blocks of yellowish chert, chalky in appearance and in sandy clay. It is very fine-grained, grayish, and is associated with corals and crinoids. Warsaw Limestone is a medium gray, fine- to coarse-grain limestone containing blastoid, brachiopod and bryozoan fossils in a chalk-like matrix.
MISSISSIPPIAN FOSSILS (gallery)
Most of the Mississippian rocks found in Kentucky are marine, and many of the fossils in them are marine (sea-dwelling) invertebrates. Common Mississippian fossils found in Kentucky include corals (Cnidaria), bryozoans, brachiopods, trilobites, snails (gastropods), clams (pelecypods), squid-like animals (cephalopods), crinoids and blastoids (echinoderms), fish teeth (Pisces), and microscopic animals like ostracodes and conodonts. When there was emergent land in the form of low coastal plains, land plants and animals lived. Land plants such as seed ferns, true ferns, scale trees, and calamite trees grew in these coastal areas. Amphibians, such as the one recently found in western Kentucky, lived in estuaries. Insects and other arthropods were probably numerous on land.
Figure
1. Productus wortheni
2. Syringothyris textus
3. Spirifer crawfordsvillensis
4. Spirifer keokuk
5a, b. Rhynchopora beecheri
6. Reticularia pseudolineata
7. Spirifer rostellatus
8a, b. Cyrtina burlingtonensis
9. Orthotetes keokuk |
Figure
1. Productus magnus
2a, b. Athyris densa
3. Spirifer lateralis
4. Spirifer washingtonensis
5. Spirifer tenuicostatus
6. Brachythyris subcardiformis
7. Endothyra baileyi
8. Metablastus wortheni
9a, b. Talarocrinus simplex
l0a, b. Pentremites conoideus |
St. Louis Fossils
Figure
la, b. Lithostrotion canadense |
Figure
la, b. Lithostrotion proliferum
2a, b. Productus marginicinctus
3a-c. Productus scitulus
4a, b. Dielasma sinuata
5a, b. Pentremites cavus
6a, b. Brachythyris altonensis |
1. Geocache is placed on LBL managed property with permission.
2. It is the visitors responsibility or orient themselves with policies and rules pertaining to this Department managed site.
3. Please gauge your own abilities carefully.
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)
Treasures
You'll collect a digital Treasure from one of these collections when you find and log this geocache:
Loading Treasures