On July 2, 1996, belemnite was named as the official fossil of Delaware. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School (Wilmington) third grade Quest students of Kathy Tidball suggested honoring the ancient and noble belemnite as our State fossil.

The belemnite was, in essence, a squid with a conical shell. It is an extinct member of the phylum Mollusca, which includes clams, snails, squids and octopuses. Belemnite fossils can be easily found along the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, which is where the Quest Students collected specimens during a field trip.

Delaware Code Title 29 § 314

Sillimanite is widespread throughout the schists of the Delaware Piedmont and occurs as large masses and steam-rounded boulders at the Brandywine Springs State Park. Sillimanite is suitable for lapidary work and under the name Fibrolite, it was recognized by geologists in Delaware prior to 1830.

Delaware Code Title 29 § 310

Since Greenwich loam (a coarse, loamy, mixed, semiactive, mesic, Typic Hapludult) is commonly found in all counties in Delaware and enhances water quality, agriculture, wildlife habitat, and natural landscape beauty, it was adopted as the State soil on April 20, 2000.

Delaware Code Title 29 § 316