In 1705, the first fossil of a mastodon was found in  Claverack, New York. A farmer found a fossilized tooth that weighed five pounds. A farmer traded it to a local politician. Then, the politician sent it to the governor, who sent it to England. The governor called it the “Tooth of a Giant”. This was the first bone found of the mastodon. Mastodons Mastodons roamed the Earth thousands of years ago. The mastodons’ habitat were the plains of Pleistocene […]

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Cenozoic Time Period The Cenozoic time period started after the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs to today. Also, another name for the Cenozoic Era is Age of Mammals. The Cenozoic Era is the third era in history and most recent era.  The Cenozoic era is divided into periods: the Paleogene, Neogene, and Quaternary period. The word Cenozoic is the Greek word for new or recent. Each period in the Cenozoic Era is divided into epochs. The Paleogene period three epochs are […]

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The Mesozoic Era by Antwon, Brookwood Middle School student The Mesozoic Era was the age of dinosaurs which consisted of the Triassic, Cretaceous, and the Jurassic period. It lasted about 180 million years. As we can all guess from the word Jurassic that it was known as the Dinosaur Age. During the Mesozoic Era, the climate was much warmer, the seasons were very mild, the sea level was higher, and there was no polar ice. The Mesozoic era’s conifer plants […]

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Paleozoic by Anna, Kaitlyn, Lexi, Brookwood Middle School students Paleozoic Time The time period of the Paleozoic Era started 550 million years ago and ended 250 million years ago. At the beginning of the Paleozoic Time, life flourished in the seas. As the time went on, the Earth looked like a tropical rain forest or swamp-lands. How did the Paleozoic Era end? The Paleozoic Era ended with the largest mass extinction in Earth’s history, the effects of this catastrophe were […]

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by Enoch, William, and T.J. from Brookwood Middle School The Xiphactinus (Zy – fack – ti – nus) translates to the sword ray. Xiphactinus is a prehistoric fish that swims deep below sea level and will eat virtually anything. Xiphactinus lived in prehistoric North America, Western Europe, and Australia. They were about twenty feet long (three meters) and anywhere from five hundred to one thousand pounds. Xiphactini (plural) lived during the cretaceous period. Xiphactinus is very large in body size. It also has a […]

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The species Tyrannosaurus rex (rex meaning “king” in Latin), often colloquially called simply T. rex or T-Rex, is one of the most well-represented of the large coelurosaurian theropods. Tyrannosaurus lived throughout what is now western North America, on what was then an island continent known as Laramidia. Tyrannosaurus had a much wider range than other tyrannosaurids. Fossils are found in a variety of rock formations dating to the Maastrichtian age of the upper Cretaceous Period, 68 to 66 million years ago. It was the last known member of the tyrannosaurids, and among the last non-avian dinosaurs to exist before the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. Like other tyrannosaurids, Tyrannosaurus was a bipedal carnivore with […]

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by Farrah, Shelby, and Gina, Brookwood Middle School Mosasaur This marine reptile lived in the Cretaceous Sea that covered most of central and southern Alabama about eighty million years ago. The mosasaur was high on the food chain and ate anything it wanted like squid, turtles, fish, or other mosasaur. One of the ways scientist classify a mosasaur is by studying its teeth. Mosasaurs are not close relatives to dinosaurs. They are closely related to a group of lizards known […]

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Alabama’s marble: One of the state’s most stunning natural resources is making a comeback by Laura McAlister, al.com ​ Some of the world’s most recognized statues are sculpted from it, and buildings from Birmingham to Washington, D.C. and beyond are clad with it. While many may think of Italy or Greece when it comes to marble, some of the world’s purest and whitest is found in Alabama. About 45 miles southeast of Birmingham is what’s known as the Alabama Marble Belt. […]

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Hematite (red iron ore) was designated the official state mineral by the Alabama Legislature in 1967. Approximately 375 million tons of hematite was mined in Alabama from 1840 to 1975 (when mining in Alabama ceased), contributing to the development of Birmingham as an industrial center. In 1904, Birmingham ore was used to cast a statue of Vulcan (the Roman god of fire), which now stands at the top of Red Mountain in Alabama. Vulcan is the largest cast-iron statue in […]

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  The True Story of History’s Only Known Meteorite Victim by Justin Nobel, for National Geographic News Take the true story of Ann Hodges, the only confirmed person in history to have been hit by a meteorite. On a clear afternoon in Sylacauga, Alabama (see map), in late November 1954, Ann was napping on her couch, covered by quilts, when a softball-size hunk of black rock broke through the ceiling, bounced off a radio, and hit her in the thigh, […]

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