The National Fossil Day Celebration at Mammoth Cave National Park

SOUTH CENTRAL, KENTUCKY,- The discovery of species that are millions of years old are providing so many people with a fun and educational experience. Dozens gathered 

to celebrate National Fossil Day and to learn more about the fun when it comes to finding fossils at Mammoth Cave National Park. Paleontologists and researchers from across the state of Kentucky spread the knowledge and help others discover the value of fossils.

One paleontologist in particular, JP Hodnett says, “Fossils are great clues of how ancient things used to live in the past. So most people only think of fossils, they think of dinosaur bones and then maybe shark teeth and things like that. But there’s a whole record of different things that used to live in ancient times.”

Along with the work of many paleontologists, hundreds of these great sources are being discovered by local volunteers like Richard Boldon. He shares that this childhood dream of his is definitely coming true.

Bolden also says, “The fossil inventory is one that has really just taken off in the past few years. Kelly and I and other people on the team got better and better at it. We got to do more and more, and almost everywhere we went, we found new fossils.”

While searching for fossils many paleontologists and volunteer researchers recently discovered a shark tooth at the park inside of a cave! They recognized the shark from the teeth that were in photographs and learned that it belonged to a shark called Civotous. They define this discovery as a game changer.

The number of species they have found is close to a thousand. The number is motivating researchers to do more for future researchers and to keep searching for more fossils. To ensure the growth continues, they have come up with new resources that are being put into action when discovering fossils.

JP says,”We started what’s called a pathological resource inventory here in Mammoth Cave, and as we’re trying to get an assessment of like what kind of fossils occur within the park boundaries. And so we were going into deep in the cave and we’re finding that man cave actually has one of the greatest fossil shark records probably anywhere in North America.

The discoveries made millions of years ago are going to continue to move Kentucky as a whole, forward into the future.