A Tale of Tapirs (and Other Things)

Once upon a time in a faraway magical land (known today as Tennessee), there was a cave deep under the ground.





I can neither confirm nor deny whether at this time it was inhabited by goblins, dwarves, elves, or dragons.

This cave had been formed over millions of years by water eating away at the limestone bedrock, gradually making the cave larger and larger. Eventually, it became so wide that it could no longer support the weight of its own roof, which began to crumble and fall down into the cave.





In this way, the cave started to “climb” upwards toward the surface. Eventually, this led to the point where the surface itself fell inwards into the cave, creating a large sink-hole about four acres in area and 150 feet deep.





Water, being acrophobic, found this big hole in the ground to be the perfect place to lurk in. And so the sink-hole soon filled up with water and became a nice scenic pond.





Lots of critters came to live in or drink from the watering hole, including fish, frogs, salamanders, snakes, turtles, alligators, mice, rats, weasels, bears, sabre-toothed kitties, badgers, red pandas, camels, rhinos, peccaries, sloths, horses, elephants, and tapirs. Over the years, many of these critters died and fell into the water (or fell into the water and died, since there probably was no lifeguard on duty most of the time), and their remains drifted down into the mud at the bottom of the pond. Gradually, the sediments of critter bits and soil and whatever else kept accumulating, creating layer upon layer of packed sediments. These sediments trapped and preserved the skeletal remains of the critters who fell into it.





As it turned out, the packed sediments in the pond were actually more resistant to erosion than was the limestone of the surrounding rock. As the years passed, the sediments in the pond got deeper while the surrounding countryside was worn away by rain and wind and thirsty animals. Eventually, the bottom of the pond actually became higher than the surroundings, becoming a low hill of black clay covered in grass and bushes.





Years later, humans wandered into the area and roamed around doing humanish things. They didn't dig around in the sediment hill at all, since it wasn't very noteworthy. Just one more hill in the middle of a bunch of hills and mountains. A railroad was run through the area not far away, and a railroad depot was built. They called it Gray Station, for reasons that nobody seems quite sure of. Farmers started farming the area, since the depot made transporting their crops easy.

An interstate was built following the railroad, and another interstate ended up passing through to join up with it. Gray Station was conveniently near this junction, and so in the 1980's and 1990's it began to build up into a somewhat more urban area. It even became home to a regional high school, which was reached by means of a widely meandering road.

High schools, of course, mean teenagers. Which means teenage drivers. And teenage drivers apparently do not do well with meandering roads. After towing the five zillionth car out of the roadside ditch, the town decided to get rid of the old road and replace it with a nice straight road. They accordingly surveyed the route, which just happened to take a big bite out of a certain innocuous hill.

The construction crews started leveling out the new road bed in the year 2000, starting from the high school and moving towards the highways. Things were going well until they started digging into a hill. Suddenly, they were finding all of this weird blackish clay sediment. This was a big problem, as the surveys had only accounted for other types of soil. The black clay wouldn't support the weight of the planned road bed.

The local construction and engineering companies called up a state engineer to look into the situation. The guy arrived and poked around in the dirt, and started finding all sorts of bones in it. By a stroke of luck, this man was also an amateur paleontologist. He not only recognised the bones as being older than the usual deer or cow or pig bones, but also that they were in remarkably good condition. They weren't even entirely fossilised; much of the original bone material was still there, with only about 10 to 20% replaced with other minerals.

By an even greater stroke of luck, the engineer recognised that he was only an amateur and that real professionals ought to be called in. And so a university in Knoxville was called up, and several professional archaeologists were sent to investigate. They poked around at the bones and identified them as belonging to a tapir. They dug a bit more into the hill, and realised that it was sedimentary in nature and contained all sorts of bones. They dug up a few bones belonging to some kind of elephant, and also some turtle bones. They concluded that this must have been a lake at some time, probably from the Pleistocene era around 30,000 years ago.

This didn't create much of a stir. Pleistocene era sites are not all that rare. It was decided that the construction crews would continue working on the road further along, giving the paleontologists time to poke around for a bit before eventually paving the area over. There wasn't any need seen for preserving the site for long-term study.

Then one of the engineers working there found an alligator skull.

Consternation set in. Alligators are not generally known for their love of the Appalachians of Tennessee. Even during the Pleistocene the climate was not favourable to them in the area. Something did not compute.

Further poking about in the dirt was undertaken, more fossils from even more different species were unearthed, and gradually realisation dawned. This wasn't some boring ol' run-of-the-mill Pleistocene fossil site. This was something considerably more scarce. This was a Miocene site. Rather than being 30,000 years old, it was closer to 7,000,000 years old. Only a very few similar sites have been found on this continent. Many of the fossils in the site were from animals that had gone extinct millions of years before the Pleistocene.

The picture had changed. And now there was a serious problem. On the one hand, there was a road being built, for safety reasons. On the other, there was an incredibly rare site full of all sorts of priceless ancient fossils. The site was surveyed and found to be over four acres in area and well over a hundred feet deep, so it would obviously take a long, long time to dig through it all properly. Centuries, perhaps. Putting the road on hold for that long was not an option. What to do?

Then the state's governor heard about the situation. He, too, turned out to be an amateur fossil enthusiast. He came out to survey the site, and decided that the place had to be left available for science. So he told the engineers to work on ways to have both the road and the fossil excavations.

First the engineers worked out a plan to make a steel gridwork over the site and run the road on top of that; this was decided on as being impractical, as it would make it too difficult to get to the fossils underneath.

Next, the engineers worked out a plan to build a bridge over the site and run the road on top of that; this was realised to be impractical due to the fact that everybody would die due to the bridge falling down unless they built in bridge supports on top of the fossil site.

The engineers then worked out a plan to move the road over about 500 feet. The scientists liked this idea, because it left the fossil site undisturbed. Everybody else liked this idea, because it didn't involve massive death and destruction as cars plunged off of collapsing bridges or whatever. And so the governor gave the plan his approval. The road was built around the side of the site, and the site was given protected status.

East Tennessee State University, one of the local schools, was given permission to run the site excavation. Funds were also obtained to build the catchy-named “East Tennessee State University and General Shale Brick Natural History Museum & Visitor Center at the Gray Fossil Site”, where locals and tourists can visit and admire the fossils and become all educated (more or less). The main part of the museum has been built and opened to the public in 2007, with further additions currently in progress. And all the while, fossil digs have been ongoing.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


The place whose name is always on everybody's lips, the world-famous ETSUaGSBNHM&VCatGFS!




The building had an interesting little fountain in the front, presumably representing the early pond that had created the site. Unlike the actual pond and (presumably) unlike the actual pond critters, nearly everything in the fountain was made out of brick.












There was a guided tour of the fossil dig sites and of the fancy laboratories where the fossils are poked and prodded, but photography was discouraged for some reason. The building has a very fancy and extensive set of climate-controlled cabinets for storing delicate fossils; they actually rent spare space out to other fossil-digging organisations, though space is gradually getting closer to running out. They keep all of their fossils in the building, only very rarely letting any leave (and then for a short time only). This is understandable, seeing as how many of the fossils are unique. They unearthed a fossil of a previously undiscovered species of badger. . .one that appears to be vegetarian. They also dug up a red panda skeleton; not only is this one of only two red panda fossils found in North America, it is also the most complete red panda fossil ever found.

However, on the self-guided part of the tour after that I was able to snap a few photos.

This is a general recreation of the pond scene at some point five million or so years ago. Just assume that it was a time of really bad famine for all of the animals, and the illusion is almost perfect! In this scene, a ravenous alligator terrorises a pair of tapirs, while a slinking sabre-toothed cat lurks behind a nearby boulder.




The mighty kitty himself! Don't you just want to give him a big hug and wuzz him?




Tapir stampede!




Gator! And this particular one doesn't have to worry very much about being made into luggage or fashion accessories.




Fangs of the dreaded Tapir of Death!




Don't disturb the rhinoceros, I think he's napping.




A very flat alligator. . .all the better to hide under your bed and pounce on your exposed feet!




Rhino tusks. These rhinos didn't have a horn on their nose the way that today's familiar ones do. The bit on the skull that does look sort of like a horn is actually just the top ridge of the nose, rather like what we have coming down from between our eyes along the top of our nose to where the cartilage takes over. The space between the sticking-out bit on the top of the skull and the front teeth on the upper jaw would all have been filled in with squishy bits of cartilage and muscles, which wouldn't have been preserved.

What they did have, though, were a pair of very pronounced tusks sticking forward from the lower jaw. So while they couldn't impale you with their nasal adornments, they could probably give you a really nasty bite. After they finished trampling all over you with their tons of weight.






Turtle shells, for rent to homeless turtles!




The ETSUaGSBNHM&VCatGFS also has the occasional roving exhibit stop by and stay for a while. When I visited, they were hosting the exhibit “Masters of the Night: The True Story of Bats”. This didn't really have anything at all to do with fossils, but it was very batty. It had a number of little displays telling about different types of bats, and had short educational videos.

And it even let you try out a pair of bat ears to see what things sound like through them.



That concluded my tour of the ETSUaGSBNHM&VCatGFS. However, they are always adding on or digging up new things, so I may drop by again at some future date.

And now, why don't you all amuse yourselves for a while!