The Falls of the Ohio State Park

It may seem hard to believe, but an ocean and coral reef existed in Indiana some 350 million years ago and we have evidence, amazing evidence! The Falls of the Ohio State Park in Clarksville, Indiana is undisputed proof. The ancient ocean floor contains visible remains of a wide variety of undersea creatures that lived out their life and died there.

Nowhere else in the world does such a vast fossil reef of the period sit exposed for us to see. The entire coral reef as we find it today stretches from Louisville in the south all the way to Indianapolis. The ocean was originally found far to the south, but he shifting of the earth's tectonic plates moved what is presently Indiana north, to its current location.

The fossilized coral reef lies exposed only at the Falls of the Ohio (that's the Ohio River) and at a few limestone quarries around Indiana. The name "Falls" is a bit misleading. The Falls are actually cascading rapids, which gradually drop twenty-six feet over a two-mile range. Niagara it's not! Famous wildlife artist John James Audubon was an early visitor to the Falls, sketching more than 200 birds of the region.

Other early explorers found this area to be the only navigational barrier on the entire Ohio River. Mark Twain recorded, "we reached Louisville-at least the neighborhood of it. We stuck hard and fast on the rocks in the middle of the river, and lay there for four days."

George Rogers Clark also stopped here on his way to the Northwest Territories. Daniel Boone came to the Falls in 1771 to warn settlers and traders about possible Indian raids.

Today, an air of excitement pervades the atmosphere at the Falls. Scientists have identified more than 600 Devonian fossil species, two-thirds of them "type" specimens or species discovered and recorded there for the first time anywhere in the world. The Devonian period goes by the descriptive name "The Age of Fish."