Mammoth Cave National Park: Paleontological resource inventory (public version)

Mammoth Cave National Park harbors one of the most paleontologically significant and diverse fossil records within the U.S. National Park Service, spanning over 300 million years from the Mississippian to Quaternary periods. The park's cave system, formed in ancient marine carbonate rocks, preserves a rich array of fossils including cephalopods, cartilaginous fishes, and terrestrial organisms such as mastodons and saber-toothed cats, reflecting dramatic environmental shifts during the Ice Age. A comprehensive paleontological resource inventory, conducted from 2019 to 2025, documented the temporal and geospatial distribution of these non-renewable resources using field surveys, photogrammetry, specimen analysis, and archival research. This study establishes Mammoth Cave as a globally significant site for understanding paleoenvironmental changes and evolutionary history.

Toomey, R., Tweet, J., & Santucci, V. (2025). Mammoth Cave National Park: Paleontological resource inventory (public version) (, Ed.). National Park Service. https://doi.org/10.36967/2308457