page_title: Paleontology in Missouri
section_title: Prehistory
hierarchical_section_title: Paleontology in Missouri / Prehistory
caption_attribution_description: Español: Cueva del Milodón, Puerto Natales, ChileEnglish: Cave of Milodón, Puerto Natales, Chile
context_page_description: Paleontology in Missouri refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of Missouri. The geologic column of Missouri spans all of geologic history from the Precambrian to present with the exception of the Permian, Triassic, and Jurassic. Brachiopods are probably the most common fossils in Missouri.
  During the early Paleozoic, Missouri was covered by a warm shallow sea that would come to be home to creatures like Archimedes, brachiopods, shelled cephalopods, conodonts, corals, crinoids, armored fishes, and trilobites. During the Carboniferous a rich flora developed on land. Primitive tetrapods left behind footprints that would later fossilize. By the end of that period the sea had disappeared from the state. The Permian, Triassic, and Jurassic are missing from the local rock record. At that time southeastern Missouri was covered in seawater. On land, the state was home to dinosaurs. Missouri remained partially covered by seawater into the early Cenozoic while a great diversity of trees grew on land.
context_section_description: There are fossils in the Missouri Pre-Cambrian such as stromatolites (Ozarkcollenia laminata) and other moneran related structures.
  Missouri was covered by a shallow sea. During the Cambrian period Missouri was home to algae, which left behind spores, and linguloid brachiopods. Trilobites were also present but were less common. Missouri had a varied fauna during the ensuing Ordovician period. Ordovician life in the state included abundant branching bryozoans, tabulate corals, tetracorals, abundant crinoids, graptolites, abundant pelecypods, nautiloids (generally straight shelled, but sometimes coiled), Receptaculites, sponges (which left behind spicules), and trilobites (which were uncommon in the Early Ordovician). Graptolites were preserved in Jefferson and Pike counties, with the Jefferson County graptolites being the better preserved. Armored fish were among the vertebrates of Ordovician Missouri.
  Later, during the Silurian period, Missouri was home to abundant lacy bryozoans, conodonts, tabulate corals, tetracorals, abundant crinoids, trilobites. Armored fish remained a part of Missouri's vertebrate fauna on into the Silurian.
  Into the Devonian, there were a small number of ammonoids, conodonts, tabulate corals, tetracorals, abundant crinoids, a moderate number of nautloids (with both straight and coiled shells), abundant pelecypods, abundant stromatoporoids, and trilobites. Vertebrate life of Devonian Missouri included armored fish. The stromatoporoids often lived closely associated with the coral. On land, spore producing plants would be preserved in the northeastern part of the state.
  During the Mississippian, Missouri was home to fairly abundant ammonoids, abundant Archimedes screws and Evactinopora bryozoan, very abundant blastoids, abundant lacy bryozoans, tabulate corals, tetracorals, endothyroid foraminferans, a moderate number of nautiloids, fairly abundant pelecypods, fairly abundant trilobites, abundant worms. The Burlington Formation of Mississippian Missouri is one of the most famous sources of crinoid fossils in the United States. Both straight and coiled shelled forms were present among the Mississippian nautiloids of Missouri. Worms left behind trace fossils in the form of their borings and tubes.
  Pennsylvanian life of Missouri included fairly abundant ammonoids, relatively uncommon Archimedes screws, obriculoid brachiopods, abundant branching bryozoans, abundant lacy bryozoans, conodonts, tabulate corals, tetracorals, abundant crinoids, abundant fusulinids, nautiloids, fairly abundant pelecypods, and fairly abundant trilobites. The Pennsylvanian nautiloids of Missouri mostly had coiled shells but some forms were straight. Their remains are most common in the west-central region of the state. Pennsylvanian marine vertebrate life included armored fishes. On land, the Pennsylvanian plant life of Missouri included ferns, reeds, rushes, and scale trees. The rich flora left abundant plant fossils ranging from microscopic to large logs. Some of the state's early tetrapods left behind footprints that would later fossilize in the vicinity of Kansas City. The sea covering Missouri was gradually filled in by sediments eroded off mountains to the east. Missouri was no longer covered by the sea by the end of the Carboniferous.
  Sedimentation resumed during the Cretaceous. Parts of Missouri were covered by the Western Interior Seaway at the time. The seawater again intruding onto Missouri originated from the Gulf of Mexico this time. The southeastern part of the state with Cretaceous sedimentation, became part of a region known as the Mississippi Embayment. On land, early flowering plants were blooming in the state. The fossil of the Hadrosaurid Hypsibema missouriensis have been found in Bollinger County. In fact, fossils of Hypsibema are among the only known dinosaur remains in the state.
  The Mississippi embayment still covered part of Missouri during the early Cenozoic. The state's early Cenozoic flora comprised plants typical of moderate climatic conditions. During the Eocene epoch of the Cenozoic era, the plan
caption: Model of Mylodon.
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