Wherein Moominmama explores some pre-history as well as some personal history near the Ohio River....

The prospect of a "fossil discovery hike" tempted Moominmama to drive south from Bloomington to the Falls of the Ohio across from Louisville, KY. It turns out that the limestone riverbed is a treasure trove of fossils from the early and mid-Devonian period about 390 million years ago. Back then, the area was a tropical sea, before the earth's tectonic plates shifted the land much farther from the equator.

 

Volunteer guide Stan Dunn led a group of us down the steps onto the flat rocks that run up to the river. We were in luck because the water level there was low enough to reveal some of the older fossils. These include corals, crinoids (or sea lilies) and the predecessors of sponges. They are early animals, even if they look like plants.

But they are remarkably abundant and easy to see. No one is allowed to take the fossils, but Stan did have handful of individual specimens he passed around.

Crazy to think I was walking on land that had once been under the ocean hundreds of millions of years ago. I saw snails, horn coral (pictured below), pipe organ coral and branching coral; the latter Moominmama hastily stepped around because they looked like goose poop until Stan informed me otherwise.

After taking in my fill of fossils, I went through exhibits at the Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center, which covered the history of the area not only during the Devonian period but through more modern times, for example when Mammoths walked this region! 

This curve in the river between Indiana and Kentucky also was a great spot for indigenous people, and scientists have found evidence of early people living, fishing, farming and hunting in and around the banks. When white people first arrived, it was the Shawnee people who lived here. 

These are native people whose language is related to the Algonquins and who apparently settled here after migrating south from Canada.

They were ultimately forced south, at first by the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (Iroquois) in the 1670s and a century later by the British. An effort to win back the Ohio River land from U.S. settlers in 1795 ended in defeat for a confederation of tribes that included the Shawnee. The tribe was pushed onto reservations, a story that will repeat itself as I head west.

This area of the Ohio River also turns out to have a personal history connection. A friend I had not seen in 25 years lives across the river in Louisville. We had both worked at the Hartford Courant in Connecticut early in our careers, and she is the rare journalist (also book author, award-winning investigative reporter, editor and teacher) still working at a newspaper, now the Louisville Courier-Journal.

Unbeknownst to me, another former Courant colleague lived nearby, and with a quick phone call, Laura arranged for us to visit and spend an afternoon reminiscing on John's back deck. I guess this is a function of Moominmama's advancing years that the past looks like some kind of golden age. At the time, I was struggling and frustrated and eager to advance from my second-class status as a "correspondent" at the Courant.

Now I can see the larger perspective and recognize my time at the Courant was a gift. The storied newspaper was fully staffed (if not actually over-staffed!), and editors and reporters worked closely together to develop stories and bring them to fruition. So thank you, John, for hiring me way back when and giving me a chance to learn from so many dedicated and hard-working reporters and editors.

Like my time at Indiana University, I failed to appreciate all I gained at the time because it felt like a stepping stone, and I was impatient to move up the river!

I'm a little less impatient now, but not a lot. Over the next few weeks, as I travel west from the Ohio River, I'll be exploring new-to-me parts of the country. And I realized at the Falls of the Ohio, my travels will intersect with the 1803 venture of Lewis and Clark. They met and assembled part of their team here at the Ohio River, reconvened near St. Louis, Missouri and then advanced with the Pacific Ocean as their goal. 

I got a brief introduction to this team at the Interpretive Center, and look forward to learning more as I head west.