Fresh Air Family

Over Easter weekend (Spring 2010), a Walker County housewife made a fossil find that would make a professional paleontologist envious: seven well preserved footprints made by a huge amphibian 300 million years ago in the muddy flats of prehistoric Alabama.

Cindy Wallace was on a field trip with her son, Gavin, to one of the world's richest sites for Coal Age fossils, the former Union Chapel surface coal mine located near Sumiton in Walker County.

While Gavin scoured the rock piles for fossils, Wallace used a tiny watch screwdriver and a rock to chip at a piece of slate. When the layers broke apart, it revealed the hand-sized tracks of Attenosaurus subulensis, a wolf-sized salamander that was the largest terrestrial creature living during the period prior to the emergence of the dinosaurs.

"It has some of the best preserved tracks of the Attenosaurus that have been found," said Carl Sloan, secretary of the Alabama Paleontological Society, which has been instrumental in the discovery, preservation and fossil collection at the Union Chapel Mine site.

Jun Ebersole, the collections manager of McWane Science Center, agreed.

"The tracks are some of the best ever found in the state," he said.

At the time the Attenosaurus was prowling Walker County, the area was an alluvial plain of tropical forest and tidal flats on the coast of an ancient ocean. The remains of the lush tropical forests accumulated in thick blankets of peat which were then covered over and buried. Over time, under pressure and heat, the peat was transformed into the coal deposits the region is known for.

The Union Chapel Mine site was discovered in 1999 by a high school science teacher, Ashley Allen, who found a treasure trove of fossil impressions of plants and animals from the Coal Age in the area.

The mine was due to be covered over under the requirements of the Mining Reclamation Act until a coalition of amateur fossil hunters waged a campaign to have it preserved.

Currently owned by the state of Alabama, the site, now known as the Steven C. Minkin Paleozoic Footprint Site, has produced thousands of plant fossils and animal and insect tracks. The Paleontology Society manages access to the site, and visitors are allowed to keep fossils unless they are deemed to be significant enough to merit further study or inclusion in a museum collection. Wallace's find is headed for the McWane Center collection.

Wallace had taken her 12-year-old son, Gavin, on the expedition with Fresh Air Family, an organization that leads parents and children on outdoor explorations around the state.

Gavin started collecting fossils at 5 and has amassed a collection of more than 600 fossils. Most have come from the wooded area near his family's home in Empire, with others coming from his grandfather, a retired coal miner, who'd gathered fossils of starfish and ferns he'd found in the mines.

But for Cindy Wallace, the Attenosaurus tracks were her first find.

"It was my very first fossil," Wallace said.

tspencer@bhamnews.com

OUTFITTERS  TO  SPONSOR  FRESH  AIR  FAMILY  ACTIVITIES

Fall 2010

   BIRMINGHAM, Alabama.  The name Patagonia conjures up images of adventurous types trekking in Nepal, kayaking on the Rio Grande or mountain climbing in ……..well, Patagonia – all snazzily dressed in the high end sports clothing company’s sturdy togs.

     But now, wilderness enthusiasts in Alabama have been stamped with Patagonia’s official seal of approval.  That approval comes in the form of a generous donation by the company to the Birmingham-based not-for-profit organization Fresh Air Family, which encourages children, teens and adults to embrace their inner outdoorsmen and women.  

     On November 24, Kim Waites, Wilderness Event Coordinator for Fresh Air Family, accepted a check for $1,500 from Christopher Groom, owner of Mountain High Outfitters, who carries Patagonia merchandise in his three Birmingham locations and one Huntsville store.

     The check, which will help fund Fresh Air Family’s 2010-2011 “Teens and Parents Hike Series,” is part of Patagonia’s Environmental Grants initiative offering grassroots support to innovative groups whose mission is to protect habitat, wilderness and biodiversity.  Since 1985, Patagonia has donated more than $38 million to some 1,000 organizations.

     Groom, as a Patagonia retailer, is given a certain amount of money each year by the company and asked to find worthy recipients.  He explains his choice of Fresh Air Family for one of the grants.

     “This organization exemplifies our mission of helping people get involved in the outdoors and educating them on the importance of conserving our natural resources,” he says.

     In accepting the check, Waites explained the vision behind the Teens and Parents Hike series.

     “Today, for a variety of reasons, we are seeing parents and teenagers growing further apart,” she says.  “In a sort of Catch-22, teens strive to break away from their parents, yet still seek to be connected.

     “These hikes allow the kids to have both a sense of individual achievement and a validation of parental bonds,” she continues, “and if they learn to value the environment, well so much the better.”

     The Teens & Parents Hike Series will resume in 2011 on January 22nd with a 4.2 mile hike (weather permitting) on the Ruffner Mountain Quarry Trail near the Birmingham suburb of Irondale, continue with monthly hikes in February, March and April, culminating on May 21st with a backpacking trip at Oak Mountain State Park in Pelham.

     Who knows?  Some of those hikers on Ruffner Mountain may one day end up heli-hiking in the Rockies, while the Oak Mountain backpackers may someday opt for backpacking in Bhutan.  The folks at Patagonia would be proud.