The Jefferson County, Florida paleontological sites are assemblages of Mid-Miocene to Late Pleistocene vertebrates from Jefferson County, Florida, United States.
The Jefferson County, Florida paleontological sites are assemblages of Mid-Miocene to Late Pleistocene vertebrates from Jefferson County, Florida, United States.
Era : Neogene
Period : Miocene to Pleistocene, ~23.03 Mya—11,000 years ago. (calculates to a period of approximately 22.92 million years).
Faunal stage : Clarendonian through early Rancholabrean
Ashville site (Miocene) Time period: ~13.5—12.7 Mya. [1]
Aucilla River site (Pleistocene) Time period: ~126,000—11,000 years ago. The Aucilla site specimens were discovered by amateur paleontologist Dr. Richard Ohmes of Bremerton, Washington in 1969. [2]
Coordinates: 30°06′N83°54′W / 30.1°N 83.9°W
Wacissa River site (Pleistocene) Time period: ~126,000—11,000 years ago. Collected by R. Alexon, B. Mathen, R. Gingery in October 1981; in shallow water. Specimens reposited in the Florida Museum of Natural History. [3]
Coordinates: 30°24′N83°54′W / 30.4°N 83.9°W
Ashland site = ASH. Aucilla River site = ARS. Wacissa River site = WRS.
Jefferson County is a county located in the Big Bend region in the northern part of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 14,510. Its county seat is Monticello.
Camelops is an extinct genus of camel that lived in North and Central America, ranging from Alaska to Honduras, from the middle Pliocene to the end of the Pleistocene. It is more closely related to living camels than to lamines, making it a true camel of the Camelini tribe. Its name is derived from the Ancient Greek κάμηλος and ὄψ, i.e. "camel-face".
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The Aucilla River rises in Brooks County, Georgia, USA, close to Thomasville, and passes through the Big Bend region of Florida, emptying into the Gulf of Mexico at Apalachee Bay. Some early maps called it the Ocilla River. It is 89 miles (143 km) long and has a drainage basin of 747 square miles (1,930 km2). Tributaries include the Little Aucilla and Wacissa Rivers. In Florida, the Aucilla River forms the eastern border of Jefferson County, separating it from Madison County on the northern part, and from Taylor County to the south.
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The Wacissa River is a large, spring-fed stream located in south-central Jefferson County, Florida. Its headwaters are located about a mile south of the town of Wacissa, where the river emerges crystal clear from a group of large limestone springs. From its headsprings, the river flows approximately 12 miles (19 km) south through a broad cypress swamp before breaking into numerous braided channels which join the Aucilla River a few miles further south. The river is managed by the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission as part of the Aucilla Wildlife Management Area, and has been declared an Outstanding Florida Waterway by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
The Lindenmeier site is a stratified multi-component archaeological site most famous for its Folsom component. The former Lindenmeier Ranch is in the Soapstone Prairie Natural Area, in northeastern Larimer County, Colorado, United States. The site contains the most extensive Folsom culture campsite yet found with calibrated radiocarbon dates of c. 12,300 B.P.. Artifacts were also found from subsequent Archaic and Late pre-historic periods.
Melbourne Bone Bed is a paleontological site located at Crane Creek in Melbourne, in the U.S. state of Florida. This site contains fossils from the Late Pleistocene period 20,000 to 10,000 years before the present. The fossils include extinct animals such as varieties of camels, dire wolves, Florida cave bears, giant armadillos, giant beavers, giant bison, giant ground sloths, mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed cats, and tapirs.
Tremarctos floridanus is an extinct species of bear in the family Ursidae, subfamily Tremarctinae. T. floridanus became extinct at the end of the last ice age, 11,000 years ago. It's fossils have been found throughout the Southeastern United States, in northeastern Mexico, and in Belize from the Rancholabrean epoch, and from earlier epochs at some sites in western North America.
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Aucilla Wildlife Management Area conserves 50,549 acres of hydric hammock, mesic flatwoods, upland forest, and spring-run river twelve miles southeast of Tallahassee in Jefferson and Taylor Counties in Florida.