A note about the Marion County sink hole site, often mentioned during the item descriptions.  So far all the items from this sink have been late Pleistocene.  An advanced fossil collector in North Carolina has had a specimen of smilodon from this sinkhole carbon dated which came back as approximately 20 thousand years old.  The various animals on my web pages that come from this rich site include armadillo, bobcat, smilodon sabercat, jaguar, lion, rabbit, camel, bear (black, short faced and spectacled), margay,  turtle, bird, peccary, muskrat, sloth, fox, skunk and opossum. This site has produced some amazing specimens.  Sink holes are both good and bad for fossil sites:  they may contain some of the best specimens due to the fact there is no current to break the bones up or to scatter the skeletons.  Also, sink holes were natural death traps in which animals were concentrated in large numbers, and sediments for preserving bones into fossils were often abundantly present.

The bad part about the sink holes is that they may be natural death traps for fossil divers as well, as they are among the most difficult and dangerous places to dive.  The depth is often great, the bottom  is usually covered with silt,  as well as packed with rotten leaves and lots of dead trees which are natural barriers to searching the bottom.  The bottom and sides are usually very unstable which poses a danger of the sides collapsing, mudslides and logs rolling down on top of the diver, who is working in the dark since visibility is nil.