The Solite Quarry - A Window Into Life By A Late Triassic Lake Margin

The Virginia Solite Quarry, situated in the Dan River basin of the Newark Supergroup, preserves one of the few fossil assemblages that include intact Triassic insects. These are, for the most part, completely articulated and preserve exquisite anatomical detail including microtrichiae. The insects are very diverse, but the assemblage is significant for representatives of many modern orders and families including four extant families of Diptera, the oldest belostomatid water bugs and the oldest thysanopteran (thrips). There is considerable debate regarding the depositional environment, but evidence is presented to support deposition under relatively shallow conditions in a saline/alkaline lake. Plants and vertebrates are also present, but by contrast with the insects, the tetrapods represent archaic lineages that apparently did not survive the Triassic-Jurassic boundary.