Fossil Hunt
Dig SITE
About the Stephen C. Minkin Paleozoic Footprint Site
APS Member and Fresh Air Family employee Carl Sloan with budding paleontologits at the fossil site
Situated on lands that were once home to the Union Chapel Coal Mine, this site is considered one of the top three Coal-Age fossil sites in the world. It took an Act of Congress to preserve the site and its fossil record of an ancient swamp and sea shore. It's the only place in the world with a complete fossil record of an ancient horseshoe crab and has been visited by scientists from around The world. The Stephen C. Minkin Paleozoic Footprint Site is owned by the State of Alabama and managed by the Alabama Paleontological Society (APS.) The fossil dig site is not open to the public, however, through our partnership with APS we have been granted special permission to bring our members and guests to the site. Everyone that visits the site finds a fossil. Children as young as five have found museum-quality pieces.
From Encyclopedia of Alabama:
"The Steven C. Minkin Paleozoic Footprint Site in Walker County is the most prolific source of vertebrate trackways of its age in the world. It is an important resource for scientists for a number of reasons: the fossils found within it are well-preserved, abundant, and diverse, and thus scientists can study multiple examples of a given species or behavior; the deposit records the footprints of some of the earliest reptiles; and it contains the oldest known examples of fish schooling and group behavior of tetrapods." To read more, visit: encyclopediaofalabama.org
Read
Alabama Paleontological Society Monograph No. 1
by Ronald J. Buta, Andrew K. Rindsberg, and David C. Kopaska-Merkel