Paleontology in Georgia (U.S. state)

Paleontology in Georgia refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of Georgia. During the early part of the Paleozoic, Georgia was largely covered by seawater. Although no major Paleozoic discoveries have been uncovered in Georgia, the local fossil record documents a great diversity of ancient life in the state. Inhabitants of Georgia's early Paleozoic sea included corals, stromatolites, and trilobites. During the Carboniferous local sea levels dropped and a vast complex of richly vegetated delta formed in the state. These swampy deltas were home to early tetrapods which left behind footprints that would later fossilize. Little is known of Triassic Georgia and the Jurassic is absent altogether from the state's rock record. During the Cretaceous, however, southern Georgia was covered by a sea that was home to invertebrates and fishes. On land, the tree Araucaria grew, and dinosaurs inhabited the state. Southern Georgia remained submerged by shallow seawater into the ensuing Paleogene and Neogene periods of the Cenozoic era. These seas were home to small coral reefs and a variety of other marine invertebrates. By the Pleistocene the state was mostly dry land covered in forests and grasslands home to mammoths and giant ground sloths. Local coal mining activity has a history of serendipitous Carboniferous-aged fossil discoveries. Another major event in Georgian paleontology was a 1963 discovery of Pleistocene fossils in Bartow County. Shark teeth are the Georgia state fossil.