Immediately after its discovery, the site was left unprotected for a short time. During this period, many fossils were collected by members of the local community and by people who simply heard of the site via the media. It seems likely that many significant specimens were lost. For this reason, the Gray Fossil Site is offering identification and preservation services to anyone who has fossils collected from the Gray site prior to it being protected.

Obviously, we would love for individuals to donate such material to the future museum, but we are NOT requiring this. In fact, we are more than willing to clean, prepare, preserve, and return any fossils that are brought in as long as we can at least view the material. If desired, this can be done entirely anonymously.

In addition, people are encouraged to bring in other fossil material (from anywhere) for identification.

Anyone wishing to bring in material for identification OR prep & preservation please contact Drs. Steven Wallace or Blaine Schubert at:

 wallaces@etsu.edu

schubert@etsu.edu

We are providing these services free of charge to the community.

Dr. Blaine Schubert looks at a (donated) fossil sloth tooth from a local cave.

This wonderful collection of Pleistocene (Ice Age) peccary material was collected from a local cave in the 1970s. These fossils (and many others) were donated to the growing collections of the East Tennessee Museum of Natural History (the official name of the fossil repository to be housed within the future museum at the Gray Fossil Site).

Samples like this not only tell us about the past life of the southern Appalachians, but they also provide excellent learning opportunities for both students and professionals.

One of several recent donations to the museum.