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Generalized Descriptions
Of The Paleontology/Geology Field Trips
Fossils
At Red Rock Canyon State Park, California: Visit wildly
colorful Red Rock Canyon State Park on California's northern
Mojave Desert, approximately 130 miles north of Los Angeles--scene
of innumerable Hollowood film productions and commercials over
the years--where the Middle to Late Miocene (13 to 7 million
years old) Dove Spring Formation, along with a classic deposit
of petrified woods, yields one of the great terrestrial, land-deposited
Miocene vertebrate fossil faunas in all the western United States.
Fossils
From Pleistocene Lake Manix, California: Explore the
badlands of the Manix Lake Beds on California's Mojave Desert,
an Upper Pleistocene deposit that produces abundant fossil remains
from the silts and sands left behind by a great fresh water lake,
roughly 350,000 to 19,000 years old--the Manix Beds yield many
species of fresh water mollusks (gastropods and pelecypods),
skeletal elements from fish (the Tui Mojave Chub and Three-Spine
Stickleback), plus roughly 50 species of mammals and birds, many
of which can also be found in the incredible, world-famous La
Brea Tar Pits of Los Angeles.
Fossil
Plants Of The Ione Basin, California: Head to Amador
County in the western foothills of California's Sierra Nevada
to explore the fossil leaf-bearing Middle Eocene Ione Formation
of the Ione Basin. This is a completely undescribed fossil flora
from a geologically fascinating district that produces not only
paleobotanically invaluable suites of fossil leaves, but also
world-renowned commercial deposits of silica sand, high-grade
kaolinite clay and the extraordinarily rare Montan Wax-rich lignites
(a type of low grade coal).
Trilobites
In The Marble Mountains, Mojave Desert, California:
Take a trip to the place that first inspired my life-long fascination
and interest in fossils--the classic trilobite quarry in the
Lower Cambrian Latham Shale, in the Marble Mountains of California's
Mojave Desert. It's a special place, now included in the rarther
recently established Trilobite Wilderness, where some 21 species
of ancient plants and animals have been found--including trilobites,
an echinoderm, a coelenterate, mollusks, blue-green algae and
brachiopods.
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Visit To The Sharktooth Hill Bone Bed, California:
Travel to the dusty hills near Bakersfield, Calfifornia, along
the eastern side of the Great Central Valley in the western foothills
of the Sierra Nevada, to explore the world-famous Sharktooth
Hill Bone Bed, a Middle Miocene marine deposit some 15 million
years old that yields over a hundred species of sharks, rays,
boney fishes, and sea mammals from a geologic rock formation
called the Round Mountain Silt Member of the Temblor Formation;
this is the most prolific marine, vertebrate fossil-bearing Middle
Miocene deposit in the world.
Fossils
From The Kettleman Hills, California: Visit one of
California's premiere Pliocene-age (approximately 4.5 to 2.0
million years old) fossil localities--the Kettleman Hills, which
lie along the western edge of California's Great Central Valley
northwest of Bakersfield. This is where innumerable sand dollars,
pectens, oysters, gastropods, "bulbous fish growths"
and pelecypods occur in the Etchegoin, San Joaquin and Tulare
Formations.
Field
Trip To The Kettleman Hills Fossil Field In Kings County, California: Take a virtual field trip to a classic site
on the western side of California's Great Central Valley, roughly
80 miles northwest of Bakersfield, where several Pliocene-age
(roughly 4.5 to 2 million years old) geologic rock formations
yield a wealth of diverse, abundant fossil material--sand dollars,
scallop shells, oysters, gastropods and "bulbous fish growths"
(fossil boney tumors--found nowhere else, save the Kettleman
Hills), among many other paleontological remains.
Fossil
Bones In The Coso Range, Inyo County, California: Visit the Coso Range Wilderness, west of Death
Valley National Park at the southern end of California's Owens
Valley, where vertebrate fossils some 4.8 to 3.0 million years
old can be observed in the Pliocene-age
Coso Formation: It's a paleontologically significant place that
yields many species of mammals, including the remains of Equus
simplicidens, the Hagerman Horse, named for its spectacular
occurrences at Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument
in Idaho; Equus simplicidens is
considered the earliest known member of the genus Equus, which
includes the modern horse and all other equids.
Ordovician
Fossils In The Toquima Range, Nevada:
Explore the Toquima Range in central Nevada--a locality that
yields abundant graptolites in the Lower to Middle Ordovician
Vinini Formation, plus a diverse fauna of brachiopods, sponges,
bryozoans, echinoderms and ostracodes from the Middle Ordovician
Antelope Valley Limestone.
Fossil
Plants At Aldrich Hill, Nevada:
Take a field trip to western Nevada, in the vicinity of Yerington,
to famous Aldrich Hill, where one can collect some 35 species
of ancient plants--leaves, seeds and twigs--from the Middle Miocene
Aldirch Station Formation, roughly 12 to 13 million years old.
Find the leaves of evergreen live oak, willow, and Catalina Ironwood
(which today is restricted in its natural habitat soley to the
Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California), among
others, plus the seeds of many kinds of conifers, including spruce;
expect to find the twigs of Giant Sequoias, too.
Trilobites
In The Nopah Range, Inyo County, California:
Traval to a locality well outside the boundaries of Death Valley
National Park to collect trilobites in the Lower Cambrian Pyramid
Shale Member of the Carrara Formation.
Fossil
Plants In The Dead Camel Range, Nevada:
Visit a remote site in the vicinity of Fallon, Nevada, where
the Middle Miocene Desert Peak Formation provides paleobotany
enthusiasts with 22 species of nicely preserved leaves
from a variety of deciduous trees and evergreen live oaks, in
addition to samaras (winged seeds), needles and twigs from several
types of conifers.
Ammonoids
At Union Wash, California: Explore
ammonoid-rich Union Wash near Lone Pine, California, in the shadows
of Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous United
States. Union Wash is a ne plus ultra place to find Early Triassic
ammonoids in California. The extinct cephalopods occur in abundance
in the Lower Triassic Union Wash Formation, with the dramatic
back-drop of the glacier-gouged Sierra Nevada skyline in view
to the immediate west.
Paleobotanical
Field Trip To The Sailor Flat Hydraulic Gold Mine, California:
Journey on a day of paleobotanical discovery with the FarWest
Science Foundation to the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada--to
famous Sailor Flat, an abandoned hydraulic gold mine of the mid
to late 1800s, where members of the foundation collect fossil
leaves from the "chocolate" shales of the Middle Eocene
auriferous gravels; all significant specimens go to the archival
paleobotanical collections at the University California Museum
Of Paleontology in Berkeley.
Ordovician
Fossils At The Great Beatty Mudmound, Nevada: Visit a classic 475-million-year-old fossil
locality in the vicinity of Beatty, Nevada, only a few miles
east of Death Valley National Park; here, the fossils occur in
the Middle Ordovician Antelope Valley Limestone at a prominant
Mudmound/Biohern. Lots of fossils can be found there, including
silicified brachiopods, trilobites, nautiloids, echinoderms,
bryozoans, ostracodes and conodonts.
Fossil
Leaves And Seeds In West-Central Nevada:
Take a field trip to the Middlegate Hills area in west-central
Nevada. It's a place where the Middle Miocene Middlegate Formation
provides paleobotany enthusiasts with some 64 species of fossil
plant remains, including the leaves of evergreen live oak, tanbark
oak, bigleaf maple, and paper birch--plus the twigs of giant
sequoias and the winged seeds from a spruce.
Early
Cambrian Fossils In Western Nevada:
Explore a 540-million-year-old fossil locality several miles
north of Death Valley National Park, in Esmerald County, Nevada,
where the Lower Cambrian Harkless Formation yields the largest
single assemblage of Early Cambian trilobites yet described from
a specific fossil locality in North America; the locality also
yields archeocyathids (an extinct sponge), plus salterella (the
"ice-cream cone fossil"--an extinct conical animal
placed into its own unique phylum, called Agmata), brachiopods
and invertebrate tracks and trails.
Middle
Triassic Ammonoids From Nevada:
Travel to a world-famous fossil locality in the Great
Basin Desert of Nevada, a specific place that yields some 41
species of ammonoids, in addition to five species of pelecypods
and four varieties of belemnites from the Middle Triassic Prida
Formation, which is roughly 235 million years old; many paleontologists
consider this specific site the single best Middle Triassic,
late Anisian Stage ammonoid locality in the world. All told,
the Prida Formation yields 68 species of ammonoids spanning the
entire Middle Triassic age, or roughly 241 to 227 million years
ago.
Fossil
Plants And Insects At Bull Run, Nevada:
Head into the deep backcountry of Nevada to collect fossils from
the famous Lower Oligocene Chicken Creen Formation, which yields,
in addition to abundant fossil fly larvae, a paleobotanic association
of winged seeds and fascicles (bundles of needles) from
many species of conifers, including fir, pine, spruce, larch,
hemlock and cypress. The plants are some 37 million old and represent
an essentially pure montane conifer forest, one of the very few
such fossil occurrences in the Tertiary Period of the United
States.
Early
Triassic Ammonoid Fossils In Nevada: Visit the two
remote localities in Nevada that yield abundant, well-preserved
ammonoids in the Lower Triassic Thaynes Formation, some 240 million
years old--one of the sites just happens to be the single finest
Early Triassic ammonoid locality in North America.
Fossil
Plants At Buffalo Canyon, Nevada: Explore the wilds
of west-central Nevada, a number of miles from Fallon, where
the Middle Miocene Buffalo Canyon Formation yields to seekers
of paleontology some 54 species of decidiuous and coniferous
varieties of 15-million-year-old leaves, seeds and twigs from
such varieties as spruce, fir, pine, ash, maple, zelkova, willow
and evergreen live oak
High
Inyo Mountains Fossils: Take a ride to the crest of
the High Inyo Mountains to find abundant ammonoids and pelecypods--plus,
some shark teeth terrestrial plants in the Upper Mississippian
Chainman Shale, roughly 325 million years old.
Field
Trip To The Copper Basin Fossil Flora, Nevada: Visit
a remote region in Nevada, where the Late Eocene Dead Horse Tuff
provides seekers of paleobotany with some 42 species of ancient
plants, roughly 39 to 40 million years old, including the leaves
of alder, tanbark oak, Oregon grape and sassafras.
A Visit To The Early Cambrian Waucoba
Spring Geologic Section, California: Journey to the
northwestern sector of Death Valley National Park to explore
the classic, world-famous Waucoba Spring Early Cambrian geologic
section, first described by the pioneering paleontologist C.D.
Walcott in the late 1800s; surprisingly well preserved 540-million-year-old
remains of trilobites, invertebrate tracks and trails, Girvanella
algal oncolites and archeocyathids (an extinct variety of
sponge) can be observed in situ.
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