A new fossil locality in Hancock County, KY includes the world's oldest fully terrestrial depositional environment preserving tetrapod fossils. It presents a unique opportunity to investigate early tetrapod morphology and phylogeny while providing important insight into contemporaneous fossil vertebrate faunas. This project will allow extensive excavation of this internationally significant locality and detailed preparation and preliminary study of the fossils derived from these efforts. The information will provide an unparalleled view of a unique Mississippian fauna and allow future broad-scale studies of fish and tetrapod phylogeny and functional morphology. Non-marine fossils at the Hancock Site are derived from three distinct facies: a heterolithic sandstone, a carbonaceous shale, and a paleosol. A rich and diverse fauna is represented by both fish (Gyracanthus, rhizodonts, dipnoans, palaeonisciforms, and xenacanths) and tetrapods (a new colosteid temnospondyl, a new embolomere, and others). Preservation in the shales and paleosol facies is exceptional and three-dimensional, a rare situation for early tetrapod and rhizodont fossils. Indeed, the discovery of a Mississippian tetrapod-bearing paleosol is unique. As early tetrapod phylogeny is presently contentious, material from the Hancock Site will ultimately enable large-scale phylogenetic analyses of early tetrapod relationships. Its fossils will also provide an unprecedented opportunity to reexamine the morphology and systematics of Rhizodontida as a sister group to Osteolepiformes plus Tetrapoda. Abundant dipnoan material (c.f. Tranodis) occurs in apparent aestivation burrows in the carbonaceous shale. These are the oldest confirmed lungfish in burrows and their excavation and conservation stand to add significantly to our knowledge of dipnoan functional morphology, habitat occupation, and respiratory evolution.
