Indiana Is Home To Tons Of Ancient Fossils And You Can Look For Them Yourself
By Tori Jane|Published June 22, 2021
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Tori Jane
Author
Tori Jane is a storm chaser, writer, photographer, and the village idiot - in that order. When she's not out and about dancing with the meanest storms on planet Earth for funsies she can be found wandering, shooting landscapes, writing, editing photos, and otherwise up to no good. Legend has it that she can also be occasionally spotted typing up short bios in the third person, but those rumors are unsubstantiated.
Did you know that Indiana is a truly fascinating state with a tremendous amount of fossils scattered all over? It’s true! Though places in the Hoosier State where you can take home the fossils you come across are uncommon, there are a few, and trust us – you’ve got to go rockhounding and/or fossil-hunting at least once! It’s educational and quite rewarding when you find good specimens. The fossils in Indiana are excellent storytellers; they tell us about eons long past, in a world we never knew.
Interestingly, despite being so well-populated by fossils, Indiana has no official state fossil.
At that time, the land we're standing on right now was close to the equator, though as time passed, it drifted north.
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Things changed, gradually, and during the Cenozoic period, warm seawater had been replaced by chilly glaciers advancing and receding across the earth, resulting in the traditional flatness in Indiana we all know and love today.
During this time, incredible beasts like mastodons, mammoths, and stag moose called Indiana home. It's thanks to geology, archaeology, and fossils that we know about these intriguing phases of our planet's life.
Though you can likely find fossils just about anywhere if you look in the right places, there are two major areas popular among fossil hunters and rockhounds.
Falls of the Ohio State Park has an incredible interactive fossil hunting experience, though you can't take anything you find home with you. If you want to bring your loot home, then the Whitewater Valley is the place you want to go.
The vertical limestone cliff faces you encounter along the Whitewater River Gorge are an excellent place to start poking around to find fossils of your own.
There is also the Cardinal Greenway, which is a lesser-known hotbed of fossil finding activity, and the totally gorgeous Thistlethwaite Falls is also known for its interesting number of fossils.
You'd be pretty surprised at the variety of critters whose fossils you can find around here.
Commonly-found fossils in Indiana include interesting specimens like crinoids, bryozoans, gastropods, brachiopods, bivalves, and trace fossils, which are the leftover imprints of things like footprints by dinosaurs and mammals of long-gone eras.
It's important to remember to respect the land, however, and not to dig terribly deep or dramatically alter the landscape in your search for fossils in Indiana.
