{"id":306482,"date":"2026-10-14T13:54:07","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T13:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/306482\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T13:54:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T13:54:07","slug":"swatara-state-park-offers-a-glimpse-into-pennsylvanias-ancient-past-for-national-fossil-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/306482\/","title":{"rendered":"Swatara State Park offers a glimpse into Pennsylvania\u2019s ancient past for National Fossil Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Visitors can search for fossils dating back 390 million to 400 million years at Swatara State Park in Lebanon County. The site features ancient marine fossils.<\/p>\n

LEBANON COUNTY, Pa. \u2014 Today is National Fossil Day, and visitors can celebrate by exploring ancient history at a state park in Lebanon County.<\/p>\n

Swatara State Park<\/a> features an active marine fossil site accessible from the Bear Hole Trail via the Swopes Valley Trailhead.<\/p>\n

The fossils date back about 390 million to 400 million years, when the region was covered by a shallow sea during the Devonian Period, long before dinosaurs existed.<\/p>\n

Visitors may find brachiopods, trilobites, crinoids, stelleroids and bryozoans.<\/p>\n

The fossil pit was created when PennDOT relocated material from an Interstate 81 construction site to the park, allowing visitors to search for fossils in a designated area. Visitors are permitted to keep the fossils they find because they are not native to the park.<\/p>\n

The park is open year-round. Visitors can access the site from the Swopes Valley Trailhead parking lot and use small hand tools, gloved hands or park-provided chipping tools to search for fossils.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Visitors can search for fossils dating back 390 million to 400 million years at Swatara State Park in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-306482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}