File:Burrow (Kope Formation, Upper Ordovician; Maysville West roadcut, Mason County, Kentucky, USA) 2.jpg

English: Trace fossil from the Ordovician of Kentucky, USA.

This specimen is from the famous Cincinnatian Series of the tristate area of Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana. Rocks in the Cincinnatian were deposited in relatively shallow marine facies during the Late Ordovician. The Cincinnatian succession is mostly interbedded limestones and shales. Most of the limestones are event beds (= tempestites), deposited during ancient storms.

Trace fossils are any indirect evidence of ancient life. They refer to features in rocks that do not represent parts of the body of a once-living organism. Traces include footprints, tracks, trails, burrows, borings, and bitemarks. Body fossils provide information about the morphology of ancient organisms, while trace fossils provide information about the behavior of ancient life forms. Interpreting trace fossils and determining the identity of a trace maker can be straightforward (for example, a dinosaur footprint represents walking behavior) or not. Sediments that have trace fossils are said to be bioturbated. Burrowed textures in sedimentary rocks are referred to as bioturbation. Trace fossils have scientific names assigned to them, in the same style & manner as living organisms or body fossils.

Seen here is a simple trace fossil often referred to as a "worm burrow". The tracemaker is unknown, but it could have been an arthropod or some vermiform invertebrate (= "worm").

Stratigraphy: float from the Alexandria Submember, Southgate Member, middle Kope Formation, ~mid-Edenian Stage, lower Cincinnatian Series, Upper Ordovician

Locality: Jersey Ridge outcrop (= Harsha Bridge South outcrop; = Maysville West outcrop) - western side of Rt. 62/Rt. 68 roadcut through Jersey Ridge, just south of the Harsha Bridge over the Ohio River, northern Kentucky, USA (~vicinity of 38° 40’ 27.27" North latitude, 83° 47' 53.11" West longitude)