Chazy Fossil Reef
Nature Preserve · Isle La Motte, Vermont
The oldest known coral reef on Earth, lying in the limestone of a small island in Lake Champlain. The Chazy Formation was laid down in the Ordovician some four hundred and fifty to four hundred and eighty million years ago, when this ground was on the floor of a tropical sea in the southern hemisphere at about the latitude of modern Zimbabwe, and it is the oldest known reef anywhere to show a genuinely diverse community of organisms living together. The reef once ran a thousand miles along the shelf of ancient North America; the most complete record left of it is on Isle La Motte, in two small preserves you can walk across.
502 Quarry Road, Isle La Motte, Vermont, 05463, United States
⚠ FREE AND OPEN, with no gate and no admission - both the Fisk Quarry Preserve and Goodsell Ridge can be walked at no charge. They are owned and maintained by a small local preservation trust largely on volunteer labour, and A DONATION IS THE HONEST WAY TO PAY FOR IT. ⚠ THE VISITOR CENTRE AND STAFFED INTERPRETATION KEEP SHORT AND SEASONAL HOURS, roughly late spring to early autumn - and the difference between a staffed visit and an unstaffed one is large here, because the fossils are hard to see unaided. Check before travelling. ⚠ COLLECTING FOSSILS OR ROCK IS PROHIBITED. Isle La Motte is at the far northern end of the Champlain Islands with very limited services; fuel and supplies before you cross. Snow covers the fossil surfaces entirely in winter.
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