MDEQ

10/15/2026

Today in Earth Science Week we celebrate Geoscience for Everyone Day. We do our part at MDEQ’s Office of Geology to help young people throughout Mississippi to explore exciting careers in the geosciences by creating educational outreach opportunities through school programs, library summer reading programs, museum programs and many more. Here at Mississippi’s State Survey under MDEQ, we see a competent workforce within the geosciences as essential for the health and growth of the scientific disciplines and our economy. Because geology is the basis for the environment, creating these opportunities to inspire interest in future geoscience careers is fundamental to the future of our society, perspectives and innovations to face its challenges, and conservation of its natural resources. We have created a number of educational resources which include our Circular series. These are free for download and are used in many physical science classes around the state. We also have helped to create exciting field opportunities in designating outcrops for public collecting and in creating these rock and fossil guides for benefit of the public’s interest.

Windows Through Mississippi’s Geologic Past: https://www.mdeq.ms.gov/geology/work-areas/publications-and-map-sales/categories/circulars/windows-into-mississippis-geological-past-12499/

Rocks and Fossils From Mississippi Gravel: https://www.mdeq.ms.gov/geology/work-areas/publications-and-map-sales/categories/circulars/rocks-and-fossils-found-in-mississippis-gravel-deposits-12501/

Frankstown Fossil Site Guide: https://www.mdeq.ms.gov/geology/work-areas/publications-and-map-sales/categories/circulars/a-guide-to-the-frankstown-vertebrate-fossil-locality-upper-cretaceous-prentiss-county-mississippi-12495/

@ MDEQ

10/14/2026

Today we celebrate Nation Fossil Day as part of Earth Science Week.

Featured today is an archaeocete fossil whale excavated in the summer of 2002 by MDEQ’s Mississippi Geological Survey staff from the Clearview Environmental Landfill in Scott County Mississippi. The “fossil whale” is Mississippi’s official State Fossil. It was designated by the state legislature in 1981 due to the abundance of fossil whale remains found in our late Eocene sediments.

The Clearview specimen is a rare, largely complete specimen of Basilosaurus cetoides whose remains are housed in the paleontological collections at the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science. A composite cast reconstructions based on the Clearview specimen was commissioned by the Japan’s National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo following the publication of a number of abstracts by our MDEQ State Survey geologists documenting their excavation in the Journal of Mississippi Academy of Sciences. Today, a mounted cast of the composite skeleton can also be found at the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, the McWain Museum in Birmingham, and with photos detailing the Scott County excavation on display for the public at the Smithsonian.

Several genera of archaeocete whales have been described from fossil skeletons found in Mississippi and Basilosaurus was the biggest of them all! Basilosaurus was so big that early paleontologists first describing their fossil remains in Mississippi and Alabama in the 1830’s mistakenly believed that this sea monster was a type of dinosaur. The name Basilosaurus means “king lizard”. It was only later that scientists realized the significance of the time period and the environment that Basilosaurus lived in and that it was actually a giant marine mammal, but its name remained.

Basilosaurus grew up to 70 feet in length and likely weighed between 6 and 15 metric tons. Its individual vertebrae can reach up to 20 inches in length and weigh up to 60 pounds. It swam in an ocean called the Jackson Sea that once covered much of Mississippi and surrounding states. The Basilosaurus is a primitive fossil whale belonging to a group of marine mammals called archaeocetes, which are ancient relatives of both modern toothed whales and more distant relatives of baleen whales.

Archeocetes were the apex marine predators during the Late Eocene epoch some 38 million years ago when much of Mississippi was deep underwater. Archeocetes were ferocious predators that ate fish, sharks, and likely also preyed on each other. They competed only with the giant mega-toothed shark from that time called Otodus auriculatus, a precursor to the infamous Otodus megalodon.

10/13/2026

Happy ! Today is Earth Observation Day.

Today we would like to engage with you in how the remote sensing tool of LiDAR is an exciting and powerful tool used in MDEQ’s State Survey geologic mapping program. Before the remote sensing tools of LiDAR, geologic mapping was once done by our Survey Geologists by hand on paper with traditional topographic maps.

Bare-earth LiDAR is a powerful remote sensing tool that uses lasers to measure detailed elevation to create a model of the earth's surface with the ground cover removed. This tool revolutionizes the detail in making interpretations in mapping landforms of the state’s surface geology for the production of ever more accurate surface geologic maps.

Geology is the basis of the environment. These maps produced by our MDEQ geologists are used by other scientists and researchers for industry and economic development, environmental planning and conservation/mitigation efforts, and by municipalities and by private landowners.

Today’s example brings us the Geologic map from the Mississippi Delta Region (Mississippi River Alluvial Plain). The Delta Region is an area of very low relief but with a very complex natural landscape and geologic history. Early attempts to map this alluvial plain have been rudimentary in this vast and seemingly featureless agricultural expanse until the advent of LiDAR. Because of the acquisition of detailed LiDAR data for this area, we can now unravel the fine details and geologic history of Mississippi’s Delta Region. The complexity of which is far greater than even our own geoscientists could ever have ever imagined by studying it through traditional field methods.

Included below is a link to the 1:500,000 scale Geologic Map of the Mississippi River Alluvial Plain. This map set was produced earlier this year by MDEQ’s Surface Geology Division staff under the USGS’s cooperative StateMap grant program.

OF-354 Geologic Map of the Mississippi River Alluvial Plain Bolivar, Washington, Sunflower, Leflore, Coahoma, Tunica, Tallahatchie, Issaquena, Sharkey, Humphreys, Quitman, Yazoo, Warren, Holmes, Adams, Panola, Wilkinson, Desoto, Carroll, Jefferson, Grenada, Claiborne, and Tate Counties, Mississippi – MDEQ

10/12/2026

Happy ! Today is and we are featuring specimens of exceptionally clear quartz gravel from the Magee Terrace deposits of Rankin County, Mississippi near Florence. Quartz is one of the most common minerals found in Mississippi and quartz gravel specimens exhibiting exceptional clarity are highly sought after by our state’s hobbyists rock collectors.

Quartz is a natural mineral consisting of crystalline silicon dioxide. Quartz is one of the most abundant, chemically stable, durable, and weather resistant minerals on earth. It is the greatest component of our state’s vast aggregate deposits. Typically it is the main component of our sands but also is the major constituent of our gravels (chert is a variety of microcrystalline quartz).

Mississippi is a coastal plain state and that means all of our mineral resources that can be found at the surface come from sedimentary environments. Quartz sands and sandstones can be found throughout Mississippi in ancient deposits dating back hundreds of millions of years such as the Hartselle Sandstone outcropping throughout Tishomingo State Park from the Paleozoic era, to modern sandbars along our state’s many beautiful rivers and streams.

Our quartz sand deposits accumulated in just about every depositional environment imaginable from the building out of land into the Gulf that created our state throughout geologic time, to the formation of our beautiful barrier islands by the continuoul shifting of quartz sand by ocean currents. State Survey Geologists with the MDEQ Office of Geology are charged with studying these many different types of quartz-bearing deposits, how they formed, and mapping where they occur in detail throughout the state.

Quartz sand and aggregate accumulations are relatively uncommon throughout the rest of the North American continent and are considered to be a strategically important resource to our country. Our state is blessed with an abundance of quartz sand and aggregate here in Mississippi. It is an important natural resource to our state for a number of reasons: it is the primary conduit and natural architecture for our state’s vast aquifer systems used for our drinking water, irrigation, and industrial needs; it is an important resource for aggregate used in construction projects, land maintenance and development, and in infrastructure projects such as road building; for use as a high quality proppant in the oil and gas industry, and for beach and barrier island renourishment projects following erosion caused by coastal storms. Mississippi’s quartz sands typically contain occurrences of heavy minerals concentrations (also called black sands). Heavy mineral constituents in our quartz sands can be important resources for the prospecting of strategic metal ores such as titanium and zirconium-bearing oxides alongside rare earth elements and iron-bearing minerals.

Earth Science Week at MDEQ

10/09/2026

28 MILLION YEARS. TWO ANCIENT SECRETS.

This week's takes us to Copiah County, where a discovery millions of years in the making reveals a surprising connection between Mississippi's prehistoric forests and the people who came long after.

Uncover the story at https://www.mdeq.ms.gov/geology/fossil-friday/!

10/05/2026

09/29/2026

09/25/2026

This , we’re looking at a fossil that preserves more than the remains of an animal — it preserves clues to what that animal did.

MDEQ geologists have documented an ancient burrow in Smith County containing tiny fish bones and other fossils. Those remains may offer clues about the burrow maker’s diet and life in Mississippi’s ancient seas some 30 million years ago.

Learn more: https://www.mdeq.ms.gov/geology/fossil-friday/

09/22/2026

Mark your calendar! The Jackson Metro Area E-Waste Collection Day is coming up Friday, Oct. 9.

Businesses and residents in Hinds, Madison and Rankin counties may bring unwanted electronics to the Mississippi Farmers Market for recycling.

📅 Friday, Oct. 9
🕗 8 a.m.-2 p.m.
📍 929 High St., Jackson

Most accepted items are free. Fees are $2 for flat-screen computer monitors, $5 for CRT computer monitors and $15 for televisions. Lithium-ion, lead-acid and nickel-metal hydride batteries will be accepted, but alkaline batteries will not.

Please remain in your vehicle while event staff collect fees and unload your items.