Summary

The paleontological resources of the NCRN are as varied as the parks where they are found. One of the reasons for such a variety of fossils is that the parks are located four distinct physiographic provinces: Coastal Plain, Piedmont, Blue Ridge, and Valley and Ridge. Many geologic formations found in the Coastal Plain Province preserve abundant and diverse paleontological resources. Parks of the NCRN, and the parks of National Capital Parks-East, in particular, contain over a half dozen of these fossiliferous formations. Chesapeake and Ohio Canal NHP, for example, spans the Piedmont, Blue Ridge, and Valley and Ridge provinces providing a detailed geological cross section of the area. Nearly three dozen known fossiliferous or potentially fossiliferous formations are exposed in and surrounding Chesapeake and Ohio NHP. Fossils have been found within the park in a number of these formations.

Throughout the NCRN paleontological resources include: various microfossils, 540 million year old worm burrows, 510 million year old trilobites, 210 million year old aquatic lizard tracks, 120 million year old petrified tree stumps, 60 million year old mollusks, and fragments of a 14 million year old whale. Some fossil finds from the parks of NCRN are of special significance. For example, notostracan (tadpole shrimp) fossils found within Manassas NBP were the first reported from Triassic-aged rocks in North America. Trilobites and conodonts from Chesapeake and Ohio Canal NHP were used to test hypotheses regarding the formation of the Appalachian Mountains. The bluffs at Fort Washington provided access to many fossils new to science in the middle 1800s, when North American paleontology was just starting to come into its own. Various fossil whale bones discovered along Suitland Parkway represent a rare occurrence of those fossils outside of the Calvert Cliffs area, and may represent a new taxa. These represent just a sampling of the known (and potential) paleontological resources from the NCRN.

Taken together, the paleontological resources from the National Capital Region contribute much to a greater understanding of the history of life on earth. Continued paleontological resource inventories will serve to expand this ever-widening base of paleontological knowledge represented throughout the National Park Service. Although more than 170 parks have already been identified as containing paleontological resources, much of what is to be known about the history of life on earth remains to be discovered.

For information or products relating to this project, please contact the NCRN Data Manager.