Gray Fossil Site

Johnson City, Tennessee is not a major tourist destination and not an area that people typically go to unless they have a very specific reason for going there or are driving on I-81 between Knoxville, TN and Bristol, TN. East Tennessee State University which is located in Johnson City is also a very unassuming place that many people outside of the region have likely not heard of. But within this region sits the East Tennessee State University and General Shale Brick Natural History Museum and Visitor Center (what I will call the Gray Fossil Site from now on) (Wikipedia page)a small but impressive museum that opened its doors in 2007.

Before I get to the review of the museum let me provide a little context as to why this museum exists, and I should point out this is just a brief summary and in no way will incorporate all of the details (see a longer and more through history here on the museum's website). Sitting directly in front of the museum is Tennessee State Route 75 which makes a large arc in front of the museum, the reason for the arc and the museum are intertwined. In 2000 the state was doing road work to widen Route 75 and as anyone who has spent time in that are of the country knows there are plenty of little hills that have been cut to the the roads where they need to get to. During the widening of the road the construction workers stumbled across some fossilized remains so they called out a paleontologist to investigate. After an initial investigation Dr. Steven Wallace realized that the site was much bigger than just the small area where the road was being widened. The governor at the time Don Sundquist along with others in the state agreed that the area should be preserved so the road was moved around the site and a museum was built to house the fossils found at the site as well as to display some of the fossils and educate the public about what had been found.

Being a museum on the site of discovery makes understanding the geology of the area important. The site sits in the Ridge and Valley Geologic Providence of the United States, the basics of which I have covered before (see here and here). The Ridge and Valley is characterized by limestone based valleys surrounded by sandstone capped ridges. This site sits in one of the limestone valleys, which as I have discussed before (here and here) limestone is easily dissolved away. The dissolving of limestone, in this case, created a sinkhole during the Miocene, the age of most of the fossils in the site, which infilled with water and therefore attracted wildlife to the site. One of the most common finds at the site are tapirs which along with several other animal and plant fossils help indicate the area was heavily forested at the time. Another fossil that tells us a great deal about this portion of North America during the Miocene is the presence of alligators which indicate a much warmer environment that was is found in the region today.

The museum itself is much bigger than one might expect from the area and is quite well done inside. After walking into the main entrance and finding out why there are so few, non-avian, dinosaurs in Tennessee and none in the area there is a little seating area. This seating area has a short video presentation on the history of the site and the importance of the finds from the site. Around the video area is an amazing painting covering the wall depicting a more Miocene like environment. After watching the video the visitor then follows the path into the main display area. Here are wonderful displays of fossils that unlike the old static displays one typically thinks of with museums show an active scene. An alligator is jumping out and attacking a tapir while life continues on around them. Around the outer wall are many smaller fossils including plant fossils and animal teeth. Displays of these type of fossils were typically not put on in the museums of old but as these fossils are as important, if not more so, to the understanding of a site more and more museums are putting them on display as well. In this area you also find out about the discovery of a red panda (although from a different genus and species from the one in the link) from the site, there are now at least two known from the site, which is important to understanding the history of red pandas as well as being cool as well. The Miocene section also has multiple drawers and areas where visitors can learn more about the animals found at the site as well as what the site teaches us about the area at the time. Most of these are clearly aimed at children but that doesn't make them any less informative. The next area of the museum is a smaller area that talks about the Pleistocene of the area. While only a small amount of this comes from the site specifically much more is known from local cave sites as well as a continuing excavation of a Pleistocene sinkhole site from Saltville, Virginia. The last few rooms of the museum show what it is like to be a paleontologist, including the typical kids excavation station where kids can "dig out" fossil casts and an area that describes how a specimen is jacketed from the field and then put back together for display/continued research. The upstairs of the museum has a window that looks in on students, volunteers, and scientists who are in the process of preparing specimens for display/research from the field. There is also a window that looks in on the main reason for such a large museum, the massive collections room where specimens that have been cleaned and repaired are put into storage for future research. The room is huge and has many cabinets full of fossils that have been excavated from the area. After looking in on collections one can walk out on a short walkway that overlooks the actual site and can, during most summer days, see a field crew of students and volunteers doing an excavation of fossil remains and preserving all of the sediment in bags for future screening for potential remains that are too small to readily be noticed. The site is huge and goes down a fair distance into the sediment below which, along with continued expansion to eventually get the whole sinkhole within the property of the museum, will assure many more years of excavation and future research.

As I mentioned when I started the Gray Fossil Site is not something you will just stumble upon but I highly recommend it. The museum is large but is easy to stop through if you just happen to be heading through the region, maybe to catch a race in Bristol. I highly recommend it and it is a unique chance to learn about when alligators, tapirs, and even red pandas roamed eastern Tennessee and when the climate of the region was much different than what is experienced in the region today.

Museum visits page