A Tradition Continues: Richmond, Indiana – Paleoecology, Fall 2025

Blog post written by students enrolled in the course, including Madeline Eaton and Lynnsey Delio.

On August 30th, Dr. Lyon’s Paleoecology class took a trip down to Richmond, Indiana to collect fossils for their lab project. The class found many different types of fossils from the Upper Ordovician Whitewater Formation that are 458.2 to 443.1 million years old! During the Ordovician Period, Ohio was covered by shallow seas that were home to many creatures such as brachiopods, horn corals, bryozoans, bivalves, and more. The constant accumulation of sediment during this time made conditions perfect for rapid burial and fossilization of organisms.

Figure 1. The Paleoecology class collecting fossils from the Whitewater Formation. Millions of years ago shallow seas dominated this area, creating the perfect habitat for a host of diverse organisms.

Figure 2. A horn coral from the Ordovician time period, collected from the Whitewater Formation with a student’s hand for scale.

Figure 3. Students searching for fossil specimens.

Figure 4. A bountiful harvest of fossilized taxa from the Whitewater Formation in Richmond, IN. This picture includes different types of corals, bryozoans, and brachiopods.

Lab Work (Post-Field Trip)

Once students returned from their trip, we were ready to get to work! We started by cleaning the samples collected and organizing them by their visual characteristics. Then, they were ready to start their identification process! Students started to recognize fossils they had learned about in class: corals, bryozoans, and brachiopods. The specimens must be correctly identified to the family level for a final class project.

Comment from a student on their experience

“I was climbing around and hunting for fossils until I stumbled upon a good-looking area in the outcrop. I started digging around, and I found some organic matter that looked like an animal dropping. I was a little sketched out, so I started lifting rocks and digging around with my foot. As I began to look deeper, I found some more droppings, but I kept on digging anyway, until some creature came shooting out of a hole directly at me, I screamed and jumped back. It turned out this creature was a MASSIVEmole whose home I had interrupted! I didn’t think any animals would live in this area as it was super dry and rocky, but I guess that goes to show life will find a place even if you don’t think it can.” –Owen Walton ’27