Stephen C. Minkin Paleozoic Footprint Site

Stephen C. Minkin Paleozoic Footprint Site, formerly the Union Chapel Mine, is a former coal mine that became an important fossil site in Alabama after an Oneonta High School science teacher discovered tracks in the rocks at the site while preparing for a school field trip. The mine belonged to a family member of one of the children in his class. It is east of Jasper, Alabama in Walker County, Alabama.

According to a research paper, the site was once part of a "swampy tropical forest adjacent to a tidal flat during the Coal Age or Carboniferous Period more than 300 million years ago. That fecund strand of sand and mud at the ocean’s edge teemed with the earth’s earliest reptiles as well as amphibians, fish, horseshoe crabs, spiders, jumping insects, and other fascinating organisms."[1]

The site is paleozoic. Tetrapod fossils have been found at it.[2] The site is one of the most abundant sources of trackways of its age.[3]

Treptichnus and Arenicolites have been found at the site.[4]

The 2016 book Footprints in Stone by Ronald J. Buta and David C. Kopaska-Merkel is about the site and its discovery.[1] In 2012 they wrote a guidebook for the site.[5]

Digs open to the public have been held at the site.[6] Ichnofossils including various Kouphichnium have been found at the site.[7]

Alabama Public Television aired a Discovering Alabama episode on fossiling and fossil sites in Alabama including this one.[8]

References
  1. Buta, Ronald J.; Kopaska-Merkel, David C. (2016). Footprints in Stone: Fossil Traces of Coal-Age Tetrapods. University of Alabama Press. ISBN 9780817389567. OCLC 942826537. Retrieved 2023-02-21.
  2. Ehret, Dana J.; Kopaska-Merkel, David C.; Buta, Ronald J. (February 19, 2016). "Footprints in Stone: Fossil Traces of Coal-Age Tetrapods". The University of Alabama Press – via Project MUSE.
  3. "Stephen C. Minkin Paleozoic Footprint Site". Encyclopedia of Alabama.
  4. Rindsberg, Andrew K.; Kopaska-Merkel, David C. (2005). "Treptichnus and Arenicolites From the Steven C. Minkin Paleozoic Footprint Site (Langsettian, Alabama, USA)" (PDF). Alabama Paleontological Society Monograph. 1.
  5. "Field-Trip Guidebook to the Steven C. Minkin Footprint Site, Walker County, Alabama". Alabama Paleontological Society. Retrieved 2023-02-21.
  6. Underwood, Madison (2014-04-09). "This weekend, your family can dig for fossils in one of the world's premier fossil sites near Sumiton". Advance Local. Retrieved 2023-02-21.
  7. King, Olivia A.; Stimson, Matthew R.; Lucas, Spencer G. (2019-10-02). "The Ichnogenus Kouphichnium and Related Xiphosuran Traces from the Steven C. Minkin Paleozoic Footprint Site (Union Chapel Mine), Alabama, USA: Ichnotaxonomic and Paleoenvironmental Implications". Ichnos. 26 (4): 266–302. doi:10.1080/10420940.2018.1561447. ISSN 1042-0940.
  8. "Alabama Fossils". Alabama Public Television. 2021-05-06. Retrieved 2023-02-21.
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