Fossil seed fern fronds, possibly of the species Neuralethopteris biformis, from the Crescent Valley Mine in Walker County.
Fossils Gallery
Alabama is the resting place of a wide range of fossils from as early as the Cambrian period, more than 500 million years ago when trilobites were a dominant presence in the oceans. The state’s most famous fossil is Basilosaurus cetoides, a toothed whale which lived in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico roughly 50 million years ago during the Eocene epoch. Other Alabama fossils include plants from the Pennsylvanian sub-period of the Carboniferous period, mollusks and vertebrates of the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods, and various dinosaurs.