I found fossilized shells while hunting in central Kansas two years ago. They were every where you could see?

Question

where the county road grader probably just road maintenance had revealed acres of them. I brought some samples home and took a couple of them to work boasting I had found fossils a million years old. In reality I think they are millions of years old. My question is how many millions of years ago did the great salten sea I have heard about cover half of the state of Kansas? Should I report my findings to someone? We are talking literly acres and acres of these kinds of fossils

Answer 1

A previous poster is correct... Kansas and a great deal of the rest of the central and western US was covered by a inland see during the Creataceous. Not suprisingly this sea is called the western interior seaway (google it you can find out more about it). It is actually very likely that your shell comes from that period of time (65 million years ago or greater...depending upon where you are in kansas etc..because the sea level rose and fell numerous times and so the shoreline would have moved back and forth as the level rose and fell). This is all pretty well documented, and if you really want to know how old it is, you need to identify the type of shell it is..this "may" help identify the time.. but it may be so common that it is of little use.
In order to be REALLY usefull you need to know where it actually came from. You make it sound like you found it on the road...after a grader came by...so it is POSSIBLE that the grader was using the shell material as a base for the road. In this case...all bets are off because who knows where the state trucks that stuff in from.

I know that doesn't really answer your question... but if you really want to know how old they are.. you need to find out where they are comming from. Is there a hillside or cliff nearby that has outcrops of rock ? does that rock have the same fossils in them ? If so.. then it should be pretty easy to determine what formation that rock is..and hence the approximate age of the fossils

Answer 2

Fossil shells are pretty damn common; I have a few fossils from the side of the highway in NY state that we just went and took some years ago.

You can hunt around the 'Oceans of Kansas' website for more information than you ever wanted.

Answer 3

Check this guy's website: http://www.oceansofkansas.com/

The central US was covered with ocean until the late cretaceous (about 65 million years ago), so your fossils are probably much older than that...

Answer 4

Try a museum or historical society