Fossils of Cades Cove
The Ordovician Jonesboro Limestone contains conodont microfossils (Orndorff and others, 1988; 1989; Repetski, 1998), and silicified macrofossils. Conodonts are microscopic (0.1 to 1mm), calcium phosphate, tooth-shaped elements of a group of extinct marine animals. The macrofossils can be seen with the naked eye and include brachipods, mollusks (gastropod operculae and orthocone cephalopods), trace fossil tubes, and possibly fragments of trilobite (Neuman, 1947; Neuman and Nelson, 1965). Brachiopods look like modern clams, gastropods look like modern snails, cephalopods look like nautilus, and trilobites resemble modern horseshoe crabs. The trace fossil tubes were made by a burrowing marine creature.
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