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  • All Fontana Regional Library Locations will be closed Friday, March 29th for the Good Friday holiday.

Join us at Macon County Public Library in Franklin on Thursday, April 28 for "Stones and Bones" (grades K-6) at 3:30pm and our adult program "Decorus calx immortalis- Beautiful Stone Immortals" at 6:00pm. Richard Hightower will bring fossil specimens and minerals and provide details of how they were found and formed. Hightower and his wife have worked in the field as collectors, preparers, and commercial paleontologists for 25 years. 

Libraries are a wonderful place to explore things new and old. A recent donation from Richard and Janice Hightower is probably both for most of us! Although somewhat familiar with fossils, this one was a new discovery for us. This fossil crinoid is 350 million years old and comes from South Morocco. It’s quite large at 46 x 40 inches and weighs about 150 pounds.

Crinoids refers to a class of echinoderms, which were sea animals, but are often referred to as “sea lilies” because of their superficial resem- blance to flowers. Their existence dates from 530 million years ago in the Cambrian Period to just a couple of species still in existence today.

Want to know more? Come see this unusual and ancient animal at the Macon County Library and join us at one of our fossil programs Thursday, April 28 at 3:30pm and 6:00pm.