Home » Science & Nature » Paleontology » Paleontology in Yellowstone National Park

Paleontology in Yellowstone National Park

© Beverly Eschberger

When most people consider Yellowstone National Park, they generally think about Old Faithful or the many other geysers and geothermal feautures, or perhaps the interesting variety of wildlife. They generally do not think about the paleontology of our oldest national park. In fact, most people do not know about the ancient flora and fauna found in the Yellowstone region, which ranges in age from the Pre-Cambrian Era (more than 570 million years ago) to the Holocene Epoch (10,000 years ago to the present).

Unfortunately, the paleontology of Yellowstone is not an area which has been well-researched, even though the first fossil collections from Yellowstone were made in 1871 during the Hayden Survey. The best-known ancient life in Yellowstone is its plant life, with over 200 species of fossil plants that have been identified by petrified wood, fossil pollen and fossilized leaves, needles, cones and seeds. Among the types of fossil plants recognized from Yellowstone are: ferns, horsetail rushes, conifers, (evergreens) with the Seqouia being the most abundant, and deciduous trees such as sycamores, walnuts, oaks, chestnuts, maples and hickories. This tells us that Yellowstone was once a warm-temperature, sub-tropical environment. (Be sure to read my articles about Paleobotany for more information.)

Petrified wood is especially well-known in Yellowstone, and visitors can see a petrified tree stump in front of the Albright Visitor Center, a fenced-in petrified tree in the Tower area and petrified wood in the foundation to the Roosevelt Lodge.

The petrified wood found in Yellowstone National Park is important because petrified wood and leaves are found in the same location, many hundreds of tree trunks are still standing upright in their original locations, successive stratigraphic layers of petrified forests are preserved, large geographic areas of petrified forest are exposed and paleobotanical specimens provide data on one of the warmest portions of the Tertiary Period (65 million to 5 million years ago).

Although collecting petrified wood (as well as all other fossils) is illegal in the National Parks, visitors to Gallatin National Forest (north of Yellowstone National Park) can tour Gallatin Petrified Forest, almost 26,000 acres within Gallatin National Forest. Visitors to the Gallatin Petrified Forest can collect up to 20 cubic inches per person per year of petrified wood, for non-commercial purposes only.

Fossils of invertebrate animals are also found in Yellowstone. Trilobiles and insects from the Pleistocene Epoch (1.8 million to 10,000 years ago) are found, as well as trace fossils left by worms and insect channels in petrified tree bark. Corals, bryozoans, brachiopods and crinoids are also found. The presence of these marine animals reminds us that an inland sea covered central North America several times during Earth's history (be sure to visit the Paleomap Project).

The copyright of the article Paleontology in Yellowstone National Park in Paleontology is owned by . Permission to republish Paleontology in Yellowstone National Park in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.