U-Haul #134: Tennessee - U-Haul SuperGraphics on Waymarking.com

The Gray Fossil Site is located in Washington County near the community of Gray, Tennessee. Tennessee Department of Transportation geologist Larry Bolt first noticed the unusual geology in excavations during realignment and widening of State Route 75. No one in his office or on the construction crews had seen anything like it anywhere in the region. He brought samples of the black and gray layered clays to the Tennessee Division of Geology's Knoxville office, which led to the cooperative excursion May 31, 2000, before bulldozers removed any more of the material.

That visit led to the initial discovery of bones and fragments by the author, who was searching more for fossil aquatic life. Other participants (Larry Bolt, Peter Lemiszki and Robert Price) recovered additional bone specimens within minutes. The rest of the day, after another stop, and the long drive home were spent discussing the site's origin and the stories it might have to tell. The bedrock setting suggested a karst feature such as a sinkhole pond, while laminated clays, with what appeared to be glacial dropstones, hinted at glaciation. Gravels and foreset bedding required a fluvial connection, and the fractures and faults suggested slumping, compaction, or maybe even a record of earthquake movements.

The author wishes to thank Peter Lemiszki, Robert Price, and Larry Bolt for their assistance and cooperation, the Division of Geology for license to work on this project, and Paul Parmalee at the University of Tennessee McClung Museum for his help in identifying some of the bones soon after their discovery.

The site is located in the Valley-and-Ridge province in upper East Tennessee. It forms a low knoll, the top of which stood nearly 30 meters above the adjacent drainage, prior to excavation. Subsequent drilling by the Department of Transportation has delineated an area at least 220 meters long, about a hundred meters wide, and underlain by up to 36 meters of gray and black clays. Where well defined, the boundaries of the deposit are abrupt and suggest a steep-sided erosional feature in the bedrock.

The fossils occur in a deposit primarily of layered black, gray, white, and buff colored clay and silt. Most layers show normally graded bedding on the scale of 1-10 mm. The dark clays are intermixed with lenses and layers of chert gravel, sand-sized material, and dolomite fragments. Within the dark clays there are a number of large (up to car-sized) boulders or blocks of dolomite. The dark clays also seem to contain the majority of the bones. When fresh, the clays have the property of turning from grayish brown, (5YR 3/2) to brownish black (5YR 2/1) within two minutes of exposure to air, eventually approaching very dark gray (N 2.5). This stands out in sharp contrast to typical residual reddish clay soil that develops over carbonate bedrock in this region.
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