The location of the state of Maine Paleontology in Maine refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of

Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and north ...

. The fossil record of Maine is very sparse. Maine came into existence during the Ordovician as other ancient land masses accreted onto North America. At the time Maine was covered by a

sea The sea, connected as the world ocean or simply the ocean, is the body of salty water that covers approximately 71% of the Earth's surface. The word sea is also used to denote second-order sections of the sea, such as the Mediterranean Sea, ...

inhabited by a menagerie of invertebrates which included

graptolites Graptolites are a group of colonial animals, members of the subclass Graptolithina within the class Pterobranchia. These filter-feeding organisms are known chiefly from fossils found from the Middle Cambrian (Miaolingian, Wuliuan) through the L ...

. During the

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, Mya. It is named after Devon, England, whe ...

, geologic

uplift Uplift may refer to: Science * Geologic uplift, a geological process ** Tectonic uplift, a geological process * Stellar uplift, the theoretical prospect of moving a stellar mass * Uplift mountains * Llano Uplift * Nemaha Uplift Business * Uplif ...

raised Maine above sea level. Early

land plants The Embryophyta (), or land plants, are the most familiar group of green plants that comprise vegetation on Earth. Embryophytes () have a common ancestor with green algae, having emerged within the Phragmoplastophyta clade of green algae as siste ...

flourished in the terrestrial environments. There is a gap in the local rock record spanning the remainder of the

Paleozoic The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838 by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ' ...

, the

Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era ( ), also called the Age of Reptiles, the Age of Conifers, and colloquially as the Age of the Dinosaurs is the second-to-last era of Earth's geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceo ...

, and the

Tertiary Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...

period of the Cenozoic era. During the

Ice Age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gree ...

, Maine was varyingly covered by

glaciers A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such as ...

or seawater. The

Pertica plant ''Pertica'' is a genus of extinct vascular plants of the Early to Middle Devonian (around ). It has been placed in the " trimerophytes", a strongly paraphyletic group of early members of the lineage leading to modern ferns and seed plants. D ...

, '' Pertica quadrifaria'', is the Maine

state fossil Most American states have made a state fossil designation, in many cases during the 1980s. It is common to designate one species in which fossilization has occurred, rather than a single specimen, or a category of fossils not limited to a single ...

Prehistory

Maine came into existence during the Ordovician as other ancient land masses accreted onto North America. At the time, however, Maine was covered by a

and located in the southern hemisphere. Large numbers of invertebrates living at a variety of depths inhabited this sea. Ordovician

left fossils behind at a location 100 miles north of Lake Memphremagog but the quality of these remains is usually so low that specimens worthy of collection are uncommon according to author Marian Murray. Remains left behind by

Silurian The Silurian ( ) is a geologic period and system spanning 24.6 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Devonian Period, Mya. The Silurian is the shortest period of the Paleozo ...

marine Marine is an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the sea or ocean. Marine or marines may refer to: Ocean * Maritime (disambiguation) * Marine art * Marine biology * Marine debris * Marine habitats * Marine life * Marine pollution Military * ...

life were preserved in the areas of Maine that border what is now

New Brunswick New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...

, Canada. The fossils are preserved sedimentary deposits within a stratigraphic interval that alternates between the fossil-bearing beds and beds laid down by volcanic activity that are made of

lava Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a fracture in the crust, on land or un ...

and

volcanic ash Volcanic ash consists of fragments of rock, mineral crystals, and volcanic glass, created during volcano, volcanic eruptions and measuring less than 2 mm (0.079 inches) in diameter. The term volcanic ash is also often loosely used t ...

. In the

mountain building Mountain formation refers to the geological processes that underlie the formation of mountains. These processes are associated with large-scale movements of the Earth's crust (tectonic plates). Folding, faulting, volcanic activity, igneous intr ...

began elevating regions of Maine. By this time the state included terrestrial habitats. Deposits from these environments reveal a contemporary

flora Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous) native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' gut flora'' or '' skin flora''. E ...

, although these plant fossils are generally fragmentary. By the end of the Devonian, all of Maine was dry land. For the rest of the

, local sediments were being eroded rather than deposited, so no fossils are known from this interval. This erosive interval continued throughout the entire

era. As such, no

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

fossils have ever been discovered in Maine. Erosion continued from the start of the

Cenozoic The Cenozoic ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterised by the dominance of mammals, birds and flowering plants, a cooling and drying climate, and the current configura ...

until the

. During the Ice Age, Maine was most thoroughly covered in

about 20,000 years ago. Their incredible weight pushed down the land relative to sea level. Consequently, seawater began to flood the state as the glaciers retreated. As the state returned to its original elevation relative to sea level it dried out and became terrestrial once again. Local ecosystems gradually became more

temperate In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (23.5° to 66.5° N/S of Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ranges throughout t ...

as temperatures warmed.

Paleontologists from Maine

Benjamin Franklin Mudge Benjamin Franklin Mudge (August 11, 1817 – November 21, 1879) was an American lawyer, geologist and teacher. Briefly the mayor of Lynn, Massachusetts, he later moved to Kansas where he was appointed the first State Geologist. He led the fi ...

was born in Orrington on August 11,

1817 Events January–March * January 1 – Sailing through the Sandwich Islands, Otto von Kotzebue discovers New Year Island. * January 19 – An army of 5,423 soldiers, led by General José de San Martín, starts crossing the ...

. *

David P. Penhallow David Pearce Penhallow (25 May 1854 – 20 October 1910) was a Canadian-American botanist, paleobotanist and educator. Born in Kittery Point, Maine, Penhallow graduated from Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1873 (now the University of ...

was born in

Kittery Point Kittery Point is a census-designated place (CDP) in the New England town, town of Kittery, Maine, Kittery, York County, Maine, York County, Maine, United States. First settled in 1623, Kittery Point traces its history to the first seafarers who c ...

on 25 May,

1854 Events January–March * January 4 – The McDonald Islands are discovered by Captain William McDonald aboard the ''Samarang''. * January 6 – The fictional detective Sherlock Holmes is perhaps born. * January 9 – The Teut ...

. *

Jack Sepkoski Joseph John Sepkoski Jr. (July 26, 1948 – May 1, 1999) was a University of Chicago paleontologist. Sepkoski studied the fossil record and the diversity of life on Earth. Sepkoski and David Raup contributed to the knowledge of extinction events. ...

was born in Presque Isle on July 26,

1948 Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The Constitution of New Jersey (later subject to amendment) goes into effect. ** The railways of Britain are nationalized, to form British ...

Natural history museums

*George B. Dorr Museum of Natural History, Bar Harbor *L.C. Bates Museum, Hinckley * Maine State Museum, Augusta *

Northern Maine Museum of Science The Northern Maine Museum of Science is a natural history museum in Presque Isle, Maine. Located on the campus of the University of Maine at Presque Isle, it was founded in the early 1970s when Leroy Norton, an Aroostook County Aroostook County ...

, Presque Isle *The Nylander Museum,

Caribou Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 subspe ...

* Wilson Museum, Castine

Footnotes

References

* Churchill-Dickson, Lisa, Dale Springer, Judy Scotchmoor. September 17, 2010.
Maine, US

The Paleontology Portal
Accessed September 21, 2012. * * Weishampel, D.B. & L. Young. 1996. Dinosaurs of the East Coast. The Johns Hopkins University Press.

External links

Geologic units in Maine

{{Paleontology in the United States