Please Note: All fossil localities in the Kettleman Hills are no longer accessible to amateur fossil collectors. This is due to rather complicated legal liability issues encountered by the local land-holders--primarily the Chevron Oil Company, the United States Bureau Of Land Management and several private property owners. In the recent past, amateur paleontology enthusiasts wishing to visit the fossil localities in the Kettleman Hills could contact the Chevron Oil Company in Bakersfield, California, in order to secure written permission to visit the supreme fossil sites. Those days have been terminated, probably for good, in perpetuity, as it were.

And Please Note, Too: All fossils figured and discussed here were collected long before the recent restrictions on paleontological explorations in the Kettleman Hills.

Extraordinarily productive Pliocene-age (roughly 4.5 to 2.0 million years old) fossil-bearing beds can be found in the Kettleman Hills, situated along the western side of California's San Joaquin Valley approximately 80 miles northwest of Bakersfield in Kings County. Here, three remarkable geologic rock deposits--the Etchegoin, San Joaquin and Tulare Formations, in ascending order of geologic age (oldest to youngest)--produce a world-famous supply of paleontological treasures, including abundant, perfectly preserved sand dollars, Pectens and various fresh water mollusks, among others--all of them entombed in the sediments deposited within a complex intergrading of fresh water, estuarine and marine paleoconditions directly related to the last great inland sea that periodically, during the Tertiary Period of the Cenozoic Era, 65 to roughly two million years ago (check out an excellent online Geologic Time Scale), inundated the modern Central Valley of California, from Redding, all the way south to the vicinity of Bakersfield. At this site, you'll get a chance to see a representative sampling of fossil goodies I've collected from the Tulare and San Joaquin Formations exposed throughout the Kettleman Hills. I've yet to seriously explore the Etchegoin, but...well, after all, tomorrow is another day, paleontologically speaking. You'll also have an opportunity to view some scans of superb Kettleman Hills fossil material already published in the Public Domain. But first, you might like to take a Field Trip To The Kettleman Hills Fossil District, California, where one used tp be able to collect numerous beautifully preserved mollusks, sand dollars and fish remains. And, as a bonus, head out on A Visit To The Sharktooth Hill Bone Bed, Southern California, a virtual field trip to the world-famous Sharktooth Hill area several miles northeast of Bakersfield in Kern County, along the eastern side of the southern San Joaquin Valley, where innumerable shark teeth and miscellaneous sea mammal bones have been recovered over the decades.

An excellent reference to consult concerning the geology and paleontology of the Kettleman Hills is United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 195, Geology of the Kettleman Hills Oil Field, by W.P Woodring, Ralph Stewart, and R.W. Richards, a publication issued in 1940 at an original cost of one dollar and fifty cents per copy; it can be found in the reference libraries of practically every major university in the United States. Read the Abstract from that USGS paper.

And be sure to visit my other Web Sites I have created; also, for important details on fossil collecting rules and regulations established by the Bureau of Land Management, jump on over to Fossils On America's Public Lands and Collecting On Public Lands

• Fossils In Death Valley National Park
• Fossils At Red Rock Canyon State Park, California
• Trilobites In The Marble Mountains, Mojave Desert, California
• Field Trip To The Kettleman Hills Fossil District, California
• A Visit To The Sharktooth Hill Bone Bed, Southern California
• Middle Triassic Ammonoids From Nevada
• Fossil Bones In The Coso Range, Inyo County, California
• Fossil Plants At Aldrich Hill, Western Nevada
• Fossils From Pleistocene Lake Manix, California
• Trilobites In The Nopah Range, Inyo County, California
• Ammonoids At Union Wash, California
• A Visit To The Fossil Beds At Union Wash, Inyo County California
• Ordovician Fossils At The Great Beatty Mudmound, Nevada
• Paleobotanical Field Trip To The Sailor Flat Hydraulic Gold Mine, California
• Early Cambrian Fossils In Western Nevada
• Fossil Leaves And Seeds In West-Central Nevada
• Ordovician Fossils In The Toquima Range, Nevada
• Fossil Plants In The Dead Camel Range, Nevada
• Early Triassic Ammonoid Fossils In Nevada
• Fossil Plants At Buffalo Canyon, Nevada
• High Inyo Mountains Fossils, California
• Field Trip To The Copper Basin Fossil Flora, Nevada
• Middle Triassic Ammonoids From Nevada
• Fossil Plants And Insects At Bull Run, Nevada
• A Visit To The Early Cambrian Waucoba Spring Geologic Section, California

• United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 264-J
• Online Verson Of United States Geological Survey Bulletin 1928
• United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 483-F
• United States Geological Survey Bulletin 1527

• Not sure where exactly the Kettleman Hills can be found in California? Not to worry. Take a look at the relief map of California (scanned from USGS P.P. 195, a Public Domain document) for a better idea of where the fossils figured here came from. And take a look at an outstanding aerial photograph of the Kettleman Hills from that same professional paper.
• Kettleman Hills overflight selected photos: aerial views of the Kettleman Hills.
• A page devoted to the Kettleman Hills and Kettleman Plain ecological subregion of California.
• Real-time, hourly meteorological updates for the Kettleman Hills; from the California Department of Water Resources, Division of Flood Management.
• General information and statistics concerning Kings County.
• Kings County History: Many links of local interest pertaining to Kings County.
• A detailed description of the formal soils type called the Kettleman Series.
• An in-depth community profile of Avenal, which is situated along northwestern side of the Kettleman Hills in Kings County.
• Current weather reports for Avenal from the Weather Underground Web Site.
• The Avenal Chimes: An online newspaper from Avenal--lots of information on what's going on in the community.
• Avenal High School: Official Home Page of Avenal High School--current enrollment just under 600 students.
• Lots of information about Avenal, plus many links, from the SeekOn search engine directory.
• Visit the Lemoore Chamber Of Commerce page to learn about the community of Lemoore, located roughly 25 miles northeast of the Kettleman Hills.
• Check out Lemoore High School .
• Jump on over to the Lemoore Naval Air Station Lemoore Internet Home Page.
• Visit The Coalinga.com Web page for loads of information about the community of Coalinga, situated roughly 20 miles north of the Kettleman Hills.
• Jump on over to the Coalinga Area Chamber of Commerce: Coalinga, The Sunnyside of the Valley.
• Current weather reports for Coalinga from the Weather Underground Web Site.
• CNN.com five day weather forecasts for Coalinga.
• Take a look at West Hills College, whose main campus is located in Coalinga.
• Department Of Geology Home Page for California State University Fresno, situated roughly 60 miles northeast of the Kettleman Hills.
• Geology Department Home Page for California State University Bakersfield, located approximately 80 miles southeast of the Kettleman Hills.
• Home Page For Taft College, located approximately 60 miles south of the Kettleman Hills.
• Visit the Home Page for Bakersfield College.
• Selected Geologic References Carrizo Plain and Vicinity--A page from the Bakersfield Home Office Bureau of Land Management.
• Geology of the Mckittrick Tar Pits--a page from the San Joaquin Geological Society devoted to a remarkable Pleistocene mammal deposit preserved in tar seeps similar to the world-famous La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, California; the Mckittrick bone pits occur only a few miles southwest of the Kettleman Hills.
• More about the famous Mckittrick Tar seeps from the Buena Vista Museum of Natural History in Bakersfield, California.
• Read all about the controversy over real estate developments in the Sharktooth Hill region by reporter Bob Price of the Bakersfield Californian.
• Buried Treasure Fossils: Sharktooth Hill Locality: A commercial page devoted to the Sharktooth Hill Bone Bed.
• More about the Middle Miocene Sharktooth Hill bone bed fauna from Elasmo.com.
• Visit MegMawl, a commercial fossil dealer that offers for sale shark teeth from the Sharktooth Hill bone bed.

Here is a series of scans of Tulare Formation fossils originally figured in United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 195, Geology Of The Kettleman Hills Oil Field--Stratigraphy, Paleontology And Structure by W.P. Woodring, Ralph Stewart and R.W. Richards, a classic report originally published in 1940. These are moderately high resolution scans of the original photographs (600dpi), so please be patient while the images load.

Here is a series of scans of San Joaquin Formation fossils originally figured in United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 195, Geology Of The Kettleman Hills Oil Field--Stratigraphy, Paleontology And Structure by W.P. Woodring, Ralph Stewart and R.W. Richards, a classic report originally published in 1940. These are moderately high resolution scans of the original photographs (600dpi), so please be patient while the images load.

The Lower Pliocene Etchegoin Formation (roughly 4.5 to 3.5 million years old) is certainly the oldest geologic rock deposit exposed at the surface in the Kettleman Hills, a predominantly marine section, although there are a few horizons that reveal fresh to brackish water fossil faunas; and it's a world-class producer of abundant, perfectly preserved sand dollars of the variety Dendraster gibbssi Remond--an attractive, striking echinoid type that finds its way into the inventories of commercial fossil companies world-wide (except for roadcoats, of course, every square acre of the fossiliferous geologic section in the Kettleman Hills is privately owned by a well-known Oil Company, whose explicit permission must be secured prior to even the most casual collecting on their property); but that's not all, naturally. In addition to an almost inexhaustible supply of beautiful echinoids, the Etchegoin Formation produces stunning Pectens, huge intact pelecypods of numerous varieties, prolific gastropods of exquisite preservation, bryozoans, barnacles, corals, fish remains, marine mammal bones, and even terrestrial mammalian remains, among others.

Geologists have subdivided the Etchegoin exposed in the North Dome area (that stretch of the Kettleman Hills which extend from a short distance north of Avenal south to roughly State Route 41) into several members, or zones, based primarily on the distinctive fossil remains recovered from each successive level of strata. The youngest member, just below the overlying San Joaquin Formation, is called "Strata Overlying Littorina Zone," which yields stunning, huge shells of the pelecypod Mya preserved upright in their original growth positions; also present are layers of fresh water gastropods and pelecypods (Amnicola and Adodonta, respectively), in addition to fossil leaves of a willow, called Salix coalingensis Dorf. Underlying that horizon is the Littorina Zone, which yields three species of gastropods and six varieties of pelecypods (take a look at the complete faunal listing). The third youngest zone is called "Strata between Littorina Zone and Upper Pseudocardium Zone," a rather thin section of sandy silt and silty clay that bears a gastropod (Calytraea) and two pelecypods (Mya and Pseudocardium)--it is not sensationally fossiliferous, though, as least not when compared with the geologic unit that immediately underlies it, the famous "Upper Pseudocardium Zone (Upper Mulinia Zone)," the first outrageously fossiliferous deposit in the Etchgoin, which yields a sand dollar, 10 species of gastropods, and 16 species of pelecypods, including the stunning Pseudocardium, a huge clam that occurs in wild abundance (check out the entire faunal list). Underlying that unit is what geologists have named the "Strata Between Upper Pseudocardium Zone And Siphonella Zone, which consists of about 45 to 80 feet of generally nonfossilferous sandstone, although such remains as Pseudocardium, sand dollars and even mastodon bones have been recovered from a blue conglomerate that locally cuts out this particular member in the exposed geologic section. Below that layer is another Kettleman Hills world-class fossil-producing unit, the much-investigated (by both amateurs and professional paleontology enthusiasts) Siphonalia Zone, a member that contains two species of sand dollars (the highly prized Dendraster gibbsii, in particular), 18 kinds of gastropods, 30 types of pelecypods, a barnacle, the curious "bulbous fish growths, land mammals (mastodon and horse), miscellaneous bones from marine mammals, and even six species of terrestrial plants (take a look at the entire faunal and floral listing). Next oldest horizon, or member, is the Macoma Zone, named for a distinctive and very attractive type of pelecypod; the member yields a sand dollar, 6 species of gastropods, 14 varieties of pelecypods, a barnacle, decopod crustaceans, turtle fragments, a small horse, and such marine mammals as a porpoise, sea lion and a whale (for a look at the complete faunal list, click here). Directly below the Macoma Zone lies what geologists call the Patinopecten Zone, named for a very attractive, large species of Scallop shell--it is yet another world-class deposit, yielding innumerable fossil specimens in what can only be termed a practically perfect state of geologic preservation; among the fossils recovered from the zone are two species of sand dollars, 10 kinds of gastropods, 24 types of pelecypods, two barnacles, the unusual "bulbous fish growths," horse and deer bones, and various marine mammal skeletal elements (check out the whole faunal listing). Lying directly below that layer is a geological unit called "Strata Underlying Patinopecten Zone", which consists of about 100 feet of brown silt and sand that contains a fauna similar to that found in the horizon immediately above it, but also includes prominent barnacle reefs; it is the oldest unit exposed in the North Dome region.

In the Middle and South Domes (which extend several miles south of State Route 41), the Etchegoin has again been subdivided into distinct subunits, or members--the youngest of which has been termed the "Strata Overlying Pseudocardium-Anadara Zone," a unit consisting of about 50 feet of silt and silty clay that contains locally abundant Mya and Macoma shells. Directly below that horizon is a member termed the Pseudocardium -Anadara Zone, which produces two species of gastropods and four kinds of pelecypods (see the entire faunal listing). Older still is the member, "Strata Underlying Pseudocardium -Anadara Zone", which bears a gastropod, six pelecypods, a mastodon, horse, an Artiodactyl, a camel, and an eared seal, plus 42 species of diatoms (take a look at the whole faunal and floral listing). The oldest section of the Etchegoin in the Middle and South Dome region has been named the "Lower Part Of The Etchegoin Formation" (that's appropriate enough, one must conclude)--it yields a bryozoan, six types of gastropods, 14 pelecypods, a barnacle, in addition to 29 species of diatoms (examine the entire faunal and floral list).

Here is a series of scans of San Joaquin Formation fossils originally figured in United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 195, Geology Of The Kettleman Hills Oil Field--Stratigraphy, Paleontology And Structure by W.P. Woodring, Ralph Stewart and R.W. Richards, a classic report originally published in 1940. These are moderately high resolution scans of the original photographs (600dpi), so please be patient while the images load.

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