Nine-year-old finds jaw-droppingly rare Paleozoic Era fossil

An example of a fossilized trilobite, like the one discovered by Eli Lee of Fernvale

Eli Lee was asked to bring in a rock to examine and share with other kids at his summer camp this week at Bowie Nature Park. What he brought in was at least 250 million years old.

For more than a year, the nine-year-old from Fernvale had been carrying around a fully formed fossilized trilobite, a hard-shelled creature that lived as long as 540 million years ago — so old in fact, they went extinct before dinosaurs existed.

Bowie Park’s Program Director Melissa Bell confirmed the trilobite discovery Thursday, saying that fossilized trilobites are relatively numerous — since the Paleozoic Era creatures once roamed virtually all corners of the earth — but fully formed ones are much more rare.

Her class, appropriately labeled Camp Rock, is made up of elementary school-aged children primarily from Davidson and Williamson counties. Most of them brought in heavy or shiny stones that paled in comparison to Eli’s offering, but became quite excited with the trilobite.

As fate would have it, Ron Clendening, a geologist with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, came to the park to speak with the kids. When he caught a glimpse of the fossil, his jaw dropped, said Bell.

When Clendening realized the importance of Lee’s ‘show and tell’ item, he contacted Eli’s parents, Steven and Tina Lee, and is working with them to find a way to protect and study the trilobite.

A future museum home seems likely, but the family says they just need some time to let it all sink in. Tina said it’s hard to understand how her son can just find something hundreds of millions of years old just lying under a bridge over a little creek on their property.

Bell says rock discoveries are aided by the fact that shifts in the earth over time actually bring rock from deep in the ground up to the surface. To prove her point, she displayed a piece of fossilized coral found at the park in the land-locked state of Tennessee.

“This was once ocean you know,” she said.

Eli’s father said his son loves to explore and has collected so much stuff that it was almost too easy to overlook the trilobite for more than 12 months.

“Eli walks around with arrowheads and stuff all the time,” said Steven Lee. “I remember seeing it, though, and I showed it to a friend.” He recalls that his friend recognized what it was but told him there were a lot of them around, so he figured the fossil wasn’t that “big a deal.”

Although dinosaurs are the most well-known fossil life forms, trilobites are also a favorite among those familiar with Paleontology (the study of the development of life on Earth), and are found in the rocks of all continents.

Because trilobites were widely dispersed geographically, an extensive fossil record was left, with some 17,000 known species spanning Paleozoic time. Trilobites ranged in size from as small as a millimeter to nearly two feet in length. The majority, however, measured in inches — as Eli’s discovery does.

The last trilobite piece found in the state was near Tims Ford State Park in 1969. A find in Benton County years earlier also has been reported.

Bell was asked if she thought it strange that a geologist gets scheduled to visit a camp studying rocks and fossils on the day one camper who’s been holding on to a fossil for a year just decides to bring it in to her nature center.

“This doesn’t just happen,” she said. “It was supposed to happen.”