Title: Message
I was saddened to
hear from Chris Garvie that Capt. Ben Ammons, the owner of Elba Hydro Power,
died about three months ago. Capt. Ammons was a retired airline pilot. In the 1990s, with
grit and patience he attempted to put the old Elba Dam back into service as a
source of hydropower, but his dream was shattered by a flood that ruined the
generating machinery before it could be put into service. The dam would have
been able to power about a quarter of the city of Elba, on the Pea River in
southeast Alabama.
The Elba Dam site is
the largest fresh exposure of the lower Eocene Bashi Marl, a thick shell bed,
and thus is one of the most important fossil sites in the eastern Gulf region of
the United States. It has been visited by generations of geologists since Daniel
W. Langdon, Jr. explored the Pea River in the 1880's. The fossils are among
those described in Lyman Toulmin's "Stratigraphic Distribution of Paleocene and
Eocene Fossils in the Eastern Gulf Coast Region" (1977, Geological Survey of
Alabama, Monograph 13). Capt. Ammons appreciated the scientific value of his property
and was unfailingly helpful to visitors who came to collect fossils, including
those who arrived unannounced. He even provided a boat on occasion. The
paleontologic community owes much to landowners: Ben Ammons was
special.
Andrew K.
Rindsberg
Geological
Survey of Alabama
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