In the past few weeks, a fossil story out of Europe attracted the attention of geogeeks and others worldwide. An unidentified man visiting his parents to see their newly renovated floors noticed what looked like a mandible in the travertine tiling. (He should know as he’s a dentist.) Turns out the travertine came from quarries in Turkey, near where others have found the fossilized remains of animals such as mammoths, giraffes, and turtles, as well as early hominids. They are between 800,000 to 1.7 million years old. At present, the recently-noticed mandible has not been identified to species though it’s clearly a relative in our genus.

You don’t have to travel to Europe (plus the location is being kept secret to protect the family’s privacy) to see fossils in quarried travertine. Down at the opposite end of our coast line, in Los Angeles, the Getty Museum is covered in travertine. Like all travertine, the Getty rock formed in a hot springs, where water that had percolated through limestone reached the surface, released carbon dioxide, and became supersaturated in the mineral calcite, which then precipitated out of the water and accumulated. A well-known example of travertine is Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park.

One of about a gazillion fossil leaves at the Getty. Note the insect damage at the top upper edge of the leaf.

German limestone — Quarried near Treuchtlingen, Germany, from 155-million-year-old marine deposits. The most common fossils — irregularly shaped and darker than the surrounding matrix — are sponges, bottom dwelling, filter feeders that formed small mounds. Ammonites are the largest fossils. They are coiled-shell animals that resemble a top down view of a cinnamon roll (without frosting, mind you). Other fossils include belemnites and forams, single celled critters that look like oatmeal flakes in this rock but which are way, way more cool than that. A similar limestone, from France, covers the floors of Westlake Mall though it lacks ammonites and has more coral.

Examples can be found in several locations:

1. Cherry Hill branch of Swedish Hospital — First floor in main building.
2. SeaTac Airport — A/B Food concourse columns.
3. Grand Hyatt Hotel — Floor of lobby.

Salem Limestone — 330 million years old – Quarried in Indiana and consisting of many fossilized invertebrates that lived in a warm, shallow sea when the midwest looked like the Bahamas. Most common are crinoid (a sea star relative) stems, which resemble small (less than 1/3 inch) poker chips; horn corals; and bryozoans, an animal that lived in colonies that resemble Rice Chex cereal. Most of the fossils are broken into bits, but they can still be puzzled out. The limestone also has a starring role in one of the best movies ever, Breaking Away.

Locations to see them include the exterior walls of the Rainier Club, University Presbyterian Church, and the old Seattle Times building.

Texas Limestone — The 105-million-year-old Walnut or Edwards Formation limestone was deposited on a shallow marine platform. Though limited in diversity the fossils are pretty abundant. They include casts and molds of an oyster (the ribbed shell) and a gastropod, probably in the genus Turritella, which, as the name implies, is turret-like. I have found these in several buildings including a store at the NE corner of McGraw St. and Queen Anne Ave. N. and a dentist’s office on the SW corner of N 72nd St. and N Greenwood St., as well as one in Port Angeles.

Building stone fossils are one of my favorite features of the urban natural world. As I have written and said many times, nature is all around us, if we take the time to slow down and pay attention. Plus, we all know there’s far too much bad architecture out there, so if you focus on the rock you can ignore the ugliness. Happy exploring!

This article was originally published in David B. Williams’s Street Smart Naturalist: Explorations of the Urban Kind, a free newsletter oriented toward building stronger connections to place through stories of human and natural history in the Pacific Northwest. You can subscribe to the newsletter via the link above.

If you want to dive deeper into the subject of building stone in urban environments, see the book: Stories in Stone by David B. Williams.

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