Fossils Found near Las Vegas

Trilobites

• Trilobites are an extinct marine arthropod that are commonly found fossilized. They often look like large beetles. As of October 2008 the Fossil Sites website had 39 sites listed in Nevada where Trilobites had been found. Trilobites were around for millions of years but peaked in terms of population in the Paleozoic Era, between 542 million and 251 million years ago.

Plants

• Plants are another fossil common to Nevada. Because plants are such an abundant form of life, more than one fossilized plant is often found in the same place, or several fossilized plants are found in and around the same site. Common plant fossils that can be found near Las Vegas and throughout Nevada include tree leaves, seeds, and even petrified wood. Most of the plant fossils found in Nevada tend to be from the Middle Miocene sub-epoch, which lasted from around 16 million to 11 million years ago.

Ammonites

• Ammonites are an extinct marine invertebrate. Genetically they are closely related to squid and other coleoids. They are relatively common in the Las Vegas area and the state of Nevada. The most common form of ammonite fossil is a coiled shell. Most of the ammonite fossils found in the Las Vegas region are from the Triassic period, which lasted from around 250 million to 200 million years ago.

Brachiopods

• Brachiopods are popular in Nevada and the Las Vegas region. They are a shelled marine creature with a hinged upper and lower shell, similar in basic structure to a clam, though the two are only related by a super-phylum. As of October 2008 the Fossil Sites website listed 35 fossil sites in Nevada that contained brachiopods. Many of the brachiopod fossils in Nevada come from the Cambrian period, which lasted from about 542 million to 488 million years ago, and the Ordovician period, which lasted from about 488 million to 443 million years ago.