Paleontology in New Hampshire refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of New Hampshire. Fossils are very rare in New Hampshire because so much of the state's geology is highly metamorphic. The state's complicated geologic history has made dating its rocks and the fossils they contain "a difficult task." The state's Devonian rocks are especially metamorphosed, yet its Mississippian rocks formed too recently to have been subject to the same metamorphism. Nevertheless, despite the geologic complications some fossils have been discovered in the state.[1]
During the early Paleozoic, New Hampshire was covered by a warm, shallow sea that would come to be inhabited by creatures like brachiopods, bryozoans, corals, crinoids, and trilobites. Geologic forces raised the local elevation during the Devonian, and local sediments were eroded away from the state rather than deposited, leading to a gap in the local rock record. Erosion continued through the Mesozoic and the early to mid Cenozoic, leaving few rocks of that age, and no fossils. By the Ice Age, the state was being worked over by glaciers and had similar wildlife to the modern Canadian Arctic.
New Hampshire fossils had attracted scientific attention by the late 1800s when C. H. Hitchcock reported local invertebrate remains preserved near Littleton. Other notable finds include fossils preserved in metamorphic rock that are still recognizable despite the extreme geologic forces exerted on these rocks.