Geology & Fossils
Delaware lies almost entirely within the Coastal Plain. Most of the state is covered with sediments deposited after dinosaurs became extinct some 65 million years ago. In fact, most of them date to the Miocene Epoch, which lasted from about 36 to five million years ago.
These sediments were eroded from the Appalachian Mountains, which rise west of Delaware. Like a great blanket, sediments cover the state, sloping gently downward towards the sea.
They also slope downward from north to south, allowing the older Cretaceous rocks that lie underneath to crop out. These Cretaceous rocks can be seen in northern Delaware. At the northern tip of the state are still older rocks. Many hundreds of millions of years old, these metamorphic rocks have few, if any, fossils.
Delaware Dinosaurs
Only fragmentary remains of dinosaurs have been found in Delaware. All have come from the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, mainly from the spoil piles created by the dredging of the Canal.
These fossils date to the late Cretaceous Period (97 to 65 million years ago) and come from the marine sediments of the Marshalltown and Merchantville Formations. Most fossils found here are marine invertebrates, primarily bivalves and gastropods. Perhaps the dinosaur fossils found here represent animals that were wading or swimming in shallow water. Or maybe they represent dinosaurs that were washed out to sea after they died.
Delaware dinosaur fossils found to date include teeth and a vertebra of hadrosaurs (duck-billed dinosaurs) and toe bones of ornithomimosaurs (small, ostrich-like predators). Other fossils represent marine reptiles (Mosasaurus, Globidens, and Tylosaurus; plesiosaur), the giant crocodile Deinosuchus; turtles (including Trionyx and Toxochelys), bony fishes and a neck bone and wing bone from a pterosaur.
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