My grandchildren Harper and Sykes are visiting from Virginia and wanted to go hunting, dinosaur and shark hunting. When they come to Columbus one of their favorite activities is collecting fossils. During the Cretaceous Period (sometimes called the “Age of Dinosaurs”) a great sea covered much of the south central United States. The chalk and sands of northeast Mississippi date to 70-80 million years ago or close to the end of that period.
On their last trip to Mississippi Harper and Sykes collected 75-million-year-old shark’s teeth along the Luxapallia at Columbus. On Friday, we ventured north with Cambell Callaway and friends to another fossil site near Tupelo. The chalk and sands at both locations where we have been finding fossils date to the end of the Cretaceous period. At that time the southern end of the then already ancient Appalachian Mountains was eroding and filling rivers with sand and gravel. These rivers were emptying into the forerunner of the Gulf of Mexico in north west Alabama and the northeast corner of Mississippi.
When the Columbus, Starkville, West Point, Tupelo area was covered by the inland sea, what is now Jackson and the part of the Delta around southern Humphreys County were volcanic islands. Because the shallow sea here was not far from the coast both marine and terrestrial fossils can be found in the area.
A wide range of Cretaceous fossils have been found in our area. They include everything from amber to coral, shells, crabs, sand dollars, fish and reptile (marine and dinosaur) bones, plant remains and even coprolites (fossil poop). It is fossil teeth, however, that most seem to capture people’s imagination.
The most common teeth to be found are those of sharks. Teeth from more than ten various kinds of sharks have turned up. Other fish teeth such as the Enchodus or “sabre-toothed” fish and an extinct “sawfish” are also common. The teeth from crocodiles and mosasaurs (a huge sea going lizard like reptile) are common in some places. Recently someone found a raptor tooth on the Luxapallia and a couple of years ago I found a broken hadrosaur (duck-billed dinosaur) tooth along the creek.
At the MUW Plymouth Bluff Center there is an excellent display of fossils from the Columbus area. A wonderful guide to fossils in northeast Mississippi is “A guide to the Frankstown Vertebrate Fossil Locality” published by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, Office of Geology. It describes the fossils found at a site near Tupelo which are many of the same fossils found along the Luxapallia, at Plymouth Bluff and other Cretaceous outcroppings around Columbus.
The fossil beds found in the Luxapallia at Columbus have the potential to easily and inexpensively make a Cretaceous park where children and adults could collect fossils such as shark teeth and learn about life on earth long ago.
Rufus Ward is a local historian. Email your questions about local history to him at [email protected].
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
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