Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Mount Whitney-each is an awesome example of nature's handiwork amidst the grandeur of California's central to southern Sierra Nevada. Yet, some six to five million years ago that mighty mountain range revealed far less precipitous extremes, and the great alpine altitudes so spectacular today there were in their youthful stages of development. At that early period of Sierran geomorphological creation, sluggish rivers wandered through extensive floodplains in a region of only moderate topographic relief; lakes and stagnant ponds lay scattered in the basins, and thickets of riparian vegetation associated with elevations dramatically lower than present grew along the watercourses.

Proof of this radically different scene can be found in rocks exposed near Verdi, Washoe County, Nevada, on the eastern slopes of the Sierra. Here occurs a wonderful fossil leaf locality in a sequence of sedimentary beds dated by sophisticated geophysical radiometric techniques at 5.8 million years old, a site where the numerous species of plants preserved provide a direct link with the climate and geography of the geologic past.

Verdi is a small gaming community that lies along Interstate 80 approximately 10 miles west of Reno, Nevada. The leaf-bearing beds occur in the vicinity of town along a railroad cut in what stratigraphers have assigned to the uppermost (youngest) layers of the upper Miocene Hunter Creek Sandstone.

This railroad cut exposes a 28-foot thick section of the Hunter Creek Sandstone, presently considered 5.8 million years old through accurate radioactive isotope analyses. The exposure extends in an east-west direction for a minimum of 125 feet and fossil leaves can be found throughout it--primarily in the bluish to gray andesitic sandstones that were derived during late Miocene times from an older volcanic formation, the Kate Peak Andesite. Interbedded with the sandstones are minor lenses of tan to white diatomaceous shales (composed mainly of diatoms, a microscopic photosynthesizing single-celled algae), within which occur nicely preserved leaves of a species of pond weed, referred to scientifically as Potamogeton verdiana--named specifically for its special occurrence here in the Hunter Creek Sandstone near Verdi.

The history of fossil plant collecting at Verdi goes back to the 19th Century. In his 1878 report regarding the famous Fortieth Parallel Survey--an exploratory expedition mandated by the US Congress, conducted from northeastern California through Nevada to eastern Wyoming during 1867 to 1872--geologist Clarence King (first Director of the United States Geological Survey) first mentions the occurrence of fossil plants near Verdi, Nevada. In 1909, in a report about oil and gas potential in the Reno region, R. A. Anderson provides a brief but detailed examination of leaf-bearing beds in the vicinity of Verdi, from what Clarence King had previously called the Truckee Formation (a geologic rock unit whose paleobotanical preservations are now understood to occur in the newly named Hunter Creek Sandstone). On page 483 of that same paper, Anderson also describes a "near Reno" fossil leaf collection secured from probable Truckee Formation beds by a professor J. P. Smith, who kept the specimens at Stanford University; taxa preliminarily identified included birch, serviceberry, manzanita, willow, and a pine cone. Some five years later, around 1914, a H. S. Gale submitted a small collection of Verdi area leaves to the US National Museum, but apparently published no formal documentation of the occurrence; sad, that--because, as later paleobotanists have noted, Gale found several species that have never since been observed from what's now called the Hunter Creek Sandstone. In 1916, vertebrate paleontologist J. C. Merriam used information supplied by paleobotanist F. H. Knowlton to help establish what Merriam believed, at that date, was a geologic correlation between Clarence King's Truckee Formation and the bone-bearing Esmeralda Formation in Nevada--a paleontologically rich deposit presently known to contain middle to early late Miocene faunas approximately 16 to 10 million years old; Knowlton compared a collection of Verdi vicinity leaves with plants already sampled from the Esmeralda Formation and concluded (quite erroneously, of course) that the two floras could be considered contemporaneous. Not until the early 1920s did a professional paleobotanist--that would be R. W. Chaney--finally amass the first large collections of fossil leaves from the Verdi locality. Supplemental collecting expeditions to Verdi by the late paleobotanist Daniel I. Axelrod in 1939, 1947, 1953, 1954, and 1956 increased the number of fossil specimens exponentially. In 1977, David A. Orson, a graduate student at the University Nevada, Reno, extracted pollen grains from lignite beds exposed in the upper half of what's now called the upper Miocene Hunter Creek Sandstone, Verdi Basin, Washoe County, Nevada, but his palynological specimens, recovered through maticulous dissolution of the low grade coal matrix with potently hazardous acids (among them, hydrofluoric acid--one of the most powerful acids known to exist--which is frequently used to break down rocks suspected to contain microscopic pollens) did not come from the Verdi fossil leaf locality.

All told, seekers of fossil leaves have recovered 18 species of plants from the Verdi exposures of upper Miocene Hunter Creek Sandstone. The most abundant leaves found belong to a Miocene variety of black cottonwood, Populus alexanderi--called affectionately by paleobotanists the "common Pliocene cottonwood." Also present are the leaves of Miocene analogs of Scouler's willow (Salix boisiensis), Goodding's black willow (Salix truckeana), quaking aspen (Populus pliotremuloides), Korean aspen (Populus subwashoensis), pinemat manzanita (Arctostaphylos verdiana), valley oak (Quercus prelobata), Engelmann oak (Quercus renoana), interior live oak (Quercus wislizenoides), sierra gooseberry (Ribes galeana), buckbrush (Ceanothus precuneatus); and a bitter cherry (Prunus moragensis). All of these leaf specimens occur exclusively in the sandstone strata, along with the needles, cones, and cone scales of such conifers as white fir (Abies concoloroides), ponderosa pine (Pinus florrisanti), sugar pine (Pinus prelambertiana), and Knobcone pine (Pinus pretubercula). In addition to yielding the slender leaves of pond weeds (Potamogeton verdiana), the lenticular seams of whitish diatomaceous shales also contain the remains of water lilies (Nymphaeites nevadensis) and stonewarts (Chara verdiana).

Supplemental palynological material, secured in 1977 by University Nevada, Reno, graduate student David A. Orson from two separate lignite horizons in the upper half of the Hunter Creek Sandstone, Verdi Basin, Washoe County, Nevada, included--from the older level--pollen grains of red fir (Abies magnifica), white fir (Abies concolor), Grand fir (Abies grandis), knobcone pine (Pinus attenuata), Western white pine (Pinus monticola), Jeffrey pine (Pinus jeffreyi), Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), willow (Salix sp.), mountain whitethorn (Ceanothus cordulatus), maple (Acer sp.), and golden chinquapin (Chrysolepis chrysophylla). The younger low grade coal layer produced pollens of Jeffrey pine (Pinus jeffreyi), ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), cottonwood (Populus sp.), Mountain mahogany (Cercocarpus betuloides), mountain whitethorn (Ceanothus cordulatus), maple (Acer sp.), walnut (Juglans sp.), Pacific dogwood (Cornus nuttallii), and questionably (contamination with recent pollen grains is highly suspected) Mormon Tea (Ephedra nevadensis). The older plant association resembles a modern pine forest community on both sides of the Sierra Nevada, with obvious similarities to lower elevation yellow pine habitats in southern California, as well. Plants in the younger lignite bed have modern analogs now living in the woodland communities on the west side of the Sierra Nevada--primarily in low altitude Sierran yellow pine associations and the Sierra foothill chaparral areas of central California.

At the Verdi fossil site, the fossil leaves are predominantly preserved as black to brownish carbonized impressions throughout the bluish to grayish, dense to poorly compacted fluviatile sandstones; several intervals in the sequence reveal leaves matted together in an almost coal-like tangle of preserved vegetable debris. Specimens of pond weeds, water lilies and stonewarts recovered from the diatomaceous shales appear lighter colored than their counterparts in the sandstones, but they too are the impressions of original leaf material--organic remains compressed through geologic time by forces of heat and pressure. This process has driven out all the volatile constituents from the leaves, except the irreducible carbon residues, which now outline the original shapes and forms of once-living plants.

Although footing at the fossil site tends to be somewhat treacherous in places, owing to the extreme steepness of much of the railroad cut, most of the plant-bearing beds can be comfortably scouted. The most accessible collecting is available along the lower talus slopes, where natural erosion, combined with periodic pickings by other fossil hunters, has produced an abundant source of sandstone blocks.

And, happily for collectors, the fossil leaves tend to lie along distinct bedding planes, fossiliferous layers that when not in plain view on an already exposed surface can be reliably spotted as thin black strips parallel to the bedding of the unweathered sandstones. Where such an occurrence is suspected, take a rock hammer and chisel (wear eye protection at all times while cracking rocks) and strike the probable fossil-bearing layer forcefully. If the strike has been true, the sandstone will invariably split with a clean break, revealing leaf imprints to their first light in nearly six million years. They tend to pop out at you in dramatic display--a cottonwood, a willow, an aspen--plants never before seen by human eyes until you investigated this tangible link with the geologic past.

A time-honored observation is that many of the the better-preserved paleobotanical specimens occur in the finer-grained rocks at the western end of the railway cut. Which virtually guarantees that innumerable folks over a period of several decades have already explored the most promising leaf-bearing areas. Still and all, even though the westernmost area has obviously been heavily fossil-prospected over the years, be sure to investigate as much of that specific geologic rock exposure as possible; excellent paleontological material still awaits discovery by dedicated paleobotany enthusiasts, in both the fine and coarser-grained sandstones.

What the rocks and their 18 species of fossil plants inform us of the ancestral late Miocene Verdi Basin is most illuminating. First off, the sandstones in the Hunter Creek Sandstone prove that a wide floodplain existed within this portion of the eastern Sierra Nevada area 5.8 million years ago, through which sluggish streams wandered. This helps corroborate the geological conclusion, based on a synthesis of successive scientific investigations, that no significant elevation barrier existed at present-day Donner Pass (altitude 7,057 feet, 30.3 miles west of Verdi) in the proto-Sierra Nevada region prior to approximately 2.6 million years ago, suggesting substantial uplift of this portion of the Sierra Nevada during Pliocene times. Nevertheless, analysis of sedimentary depositional patters indicates that watercourses in the ancestral Verdi Basin never flowed westward across the nascent Donner "divide;" neither did streams carry detritus beyond the localized basin. Thus, present evidence inescapably supports the postulation that the late Miocene Verdi Basin was one of many widely scattered endorheic (internally drained) centers of sedimentary accumulation that came into existence during a period of later Tertiary Period extensional forces, which beginning about 16 million years ago had already begun to create today's Great Basin physiographic province.

Within the late Miocene Verdi area some 5.8 million years ago, watercourses supported thick woodlands composed of cottonwoods and willows. Ponds, lakes and swamps in the basin--where layers of diatomaceous shale accumulated--held colonies of water lilies, stonewarts, and pond weeds. Dominating the higher elevations was a forest community of aspens, ponderosa pine, Knobcone pine, Sugar pine, and White fir. In addition to the trees, such brushes as manzanita, bitter cherry, and gooseberry were confined to moister valleys and slopes bordering the basin.

From the available geological evidence it appears that most members of the preserved Verdi Basin plant communities were transported into the floodplain during episodes of periodic flooding, although the aspens and willows could have extended down to the lowlands in moderate numbers. The well-drained drier slopes and flats supported a chaparral-style woodland of valley oaks, evergreen live oak, and buckbrush; a species of closed cone pine occupied the rocky, exposed slopes throughout the woodland.

Climatic conditions were much more moderate than those observed in the Verdi area today. Rainfall was in the neighborhood of 18 to 20 inches per year, but that figure could have increased to as much as 25 inches in the higher hills. Verdi today lies within a semi-arid region of sparse rainfall, receiving most of its 13 inches of effective annual precipitation as snow during wintertime. It seems that late Miocene summers were warm to hot, as the plants indicate that the average July highs stayed around 85 degrees. January low averages probably ranged near 45 degrees, which contrasts dramatically with the present January Verdi low normal of 21 degrees. Additionally, today, wintertime temperatures at Verdi can sometimes plummet to numerous degrees below zero, with windchill factors reminiscent of Antarctica meteorological conditions.

Within such a temperate late Miocene climate, the growing season was likely as long as 210 days; today in the Verdi district it is barely 114 days. Elevations at the site of deposition could not have much higher than 2,500 feet, an estimate based on the known habitats of living members of the plant groups identified in the fossil beds. Verdi today lies at an elevation of 4,905 feet.

Probably the closest modern-day comparison with the specific association of plants displayed in the late Miocene Hunter Creek Sandstone is the California Gold Country, western Sierra Nevada foothills, from Placerville south to Jackson. Here the lush Sierran forest of pine, aspen, white fir, and cottonwood interfingers with a vigorous chaparral community of Valley oak, evergreen live oak, and manzanita.

Today, by contrast, the Verdi fossil locality lies within a botanic transition zone from pinon-juniper woodlands to a classic Sierra Nevada conifer forest. Within proximity of the late Miocene leaf-bearing site, for example, occur such typical transition plants as pinon pine (Pinus monophylla), juniper (Juniperus utahensis), Basin sage (Artemisia tridentata), curl leaf mahogany (Cercocarpus ledifolius), rabbit brush (Chrysothamnus nauseosus), desert peach (Primus andcrsonii), antelope brush (Purshia tridentata), plateau gooseberry (Ribes velutinum), and horsebrush (Tetradymia glabrata). Only a slight increase in elevation here brings on a dominant Sierran forest community, characterized by three defined botanic associations as one gains altitude. The lowest zone contains Jeffrey pine (Pinus jeffreyi), white fir (Abies concolor), incense cedar (Libocedrus decurrens), sugar pine (Pinus lambertiana). yellow pine (Pinus ponderosa), green manzanita (Arctostaphylos patida), chinquipin (Castanopsis sempervirens), deer brush (Ceanotlius integerrimus), white thorn (C. cordidatus), bitter cherry (Prunus emarginata), alder (Alnus tenuifolia), serviceberry(Amelanchier alnifolia), dogwood (Cornus californica), aspen (Populus tremidoides), black cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa), chokecherry (Prunus demissa), rose (Rosa gymnocarpa), and several kinds of willow (Salix spp.). From 7,500 feet to about 8,500 feet, a middle forest is dominated by white fir (Abies concolor), red fir (A. magnifica), Jeffrey pine (Pinus jeffreyi), pine-mat manzanita (Arctostaphylos nevadensis), chinquipin (Castanopsis sempervirens), huckleberry oak (Quercus vaccinifolia), alder (Ainus tenuifolia), bitter cherry (Prunus emarginata), lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) and aspen (Populus tremuloides). At about 8,500 feet elevation occurs a subalpine forest association with white-bark pine (Pinus albicaulis), white pine (Pinus monticola), and mountain hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana). Regionally, not far above 8,500 feet lies the Sierran timberline of barren arctic-alpine inclines and high summits.

A genuine field day can be experienced finding fossil leaves at Verdi. Not only are the paleobotanic preservations plentiful and easy to locate, but they're also scientifically valuable--exquisite carbonized evidence of an important geologic age, the latest Miocene of roughly 6 to 5.3 million years ago. And because fossil leaves remain relatively infrequent occurrences throughout the Sierra Nevada district, the Verdi locality assumes even greater paleontological significance. Hence, specimens that reveal especial excellence of preservation should be brought to the attention of a professional paleobotanist. Who knows, you might have discovered a species that is new to science.

Naturally speaking, some special words of caution are obviously in order here. The fossiliferous beds lie in close proximity to an occasionally busy railway line (read: you're practically right on top of the tracks). Fortunately for paleobotany adventurers here, approaching trains can be heard--and seen--from a distance, so you have ample opportunity to get completely clear of the tracks.

Of course, always conduct due diligence before visiting the area; check with the railroad folks to determine the most current collecting guidelines. If permission is still granted, be careful not to scatter rock debris on the tracks. Use good judgment at all times and this site will potentially remain a safe and accessible place to visit.

• The Acoustic Guitar Solitaire Of Inyo: A Cyber-CD: I play 30 covers of some of my favorite songs on an acoustic 6-string guitar; it's all free music.
• Beyond The Timberline--A Cyber-CD: I play 32 selections comprised of covers and original tunes on acoustic 6 and 12-string guitars; it's all free music.
• The Distant Path--A Cyber-CD: I play 32 acoustic guitar covers and original compositions; it's all free music.
• Inyo And Folks--A Musical History--A Quintuple Cyber-CD: My parents and I play 203 selections; it's all free music.
• Acoustic Stratigraphy--A Cyber-CD: I play 34 covers of some of my favorite songs on 6 and 12-string guitars; it's all free music.
• Back To Badwater--A Cyber-CD: I play 32 covers and original compositions on 6 and 12-string guitars; it's all free music.
• All Inyo All The Time: All six of my cyber-cds in one place (includes a quintuple cyber-cd box set); links to all of my solo acoustic guitar playing, in addition to selections my parents and I recorded during the Golden Age of our spontaneous, impromptu recording sessions. Includes an option to stream all 364 selectons; thirteen hours, seventeen minues and forty seconds of music (it's all free music).
• It's A Happening Thing--Music From The Year 1967: All songs that charted US Billboard Hot 100 (#1 to #100) and Bubbling Under (records that charted in positions #101 to #135) in 1967.

• Fossils In Death Valley National Park: A site dedicated to the paleontology, geology, and natural wonders of Death Valley National Park; lots of on-site photographs of scenic localities within the park; images of fossils specimens; links to many virtual field trips of fossil-bearing interest.
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• A Visit To Fossil Valley, Great Basin Desert, Nevada: Take a virtual field trip to a Nevada locality that yields the most complete, diverse, fossil assemblage of terrestrial Miocene plants and animals known from North America--and perhaps the world, as well. Yields insects, leaves, seeds, conifer needles and twigs, flowering structures, pollens, petrified wood, diatoms, algal bodies, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, bird feathers, fish, gastropods, pelecypods (bivalves), and ostracods.
• 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 Hollywood 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.
• Cambrian And Ordovician Fossils At Extinction Canyon, Nevada: Visit a site in Nevada's Great Basin Desert that yields locally common whole and mostly complete early Cambrian trilobites, in addition to other extinct organisms such as graptolites (early hemichordate), salterella (small conical critter placed in the phylum Agmata), Lidaconus (diminutive tusk-shaped shell of unestablished zoological affinity), Girvanella (photosynthesizing cyanobacterial algae), and Caryocaris (a bivalved crustacean).
• Late Pennsylvanian Fossils In Kansas: Travel to the midwestern plains to discover the classic late Pennsylvanian fossil wealth of Kansas--abundant, supremely well-preserved associations of such invertebrate animals as brachiopods, bryozoans, corals, echinoderms, fusulinids, mollusks (gastropods, pelecypods, cephalopods, scaphopods), and sponges; one of the great places on the planet to find fossils some 307 to 299 million years old.
• 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).
• Ice Age Fossils At Santa Barbara, California--Journey to the famed So Cal coastal community of Santa Barbara (about a 100 miles north of Los Angeles) to explore one of the best marine Pleistocene invertebrate fossil-bearing areas on the west coast of the United States; that's where the middle Pleistocene Santa Barbara Formation yields nearly 400 species of pelecypod bivalve mollusks, gastropods, chitons, scaphopods, pteropods, brachiopods, bryozoans, corals, ostracods (minute bivalve crustaceans), worm tubes, and foraminifers.
• 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 rather 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.
• Fossil Plants In The Neighborhood Of Reno, Nevada: Visit two famous fossil plant localities in the Great Basin Desert near Reno, Nevada--a place to find leaves, seeds, needles, foilage, and cones in the middle Miocene Pyramid and Chloropagus Formations, 15.6 and 14.8 to 13.3 million years old, respectively.
• Dinosaur-Age Fossil Leaves At Del Puerto Creek, California: Journey to the western edge of California's Great Central Valley to explore a classic fossil leaf locality in an upper Cretaceous section of the upper Cretaceous to Paleocene Moreno Formation; the plants you find there lived during the day of the dinosaur.
• Early Cambrian Fossils Of Westgard Pass, California: Visit the Westgard Pass area, a world-renowned geologic wonderland several miles east of Big Pine, California, in the neighboring White-Inyo Mountains, to examine one of the best places in the world to find archaeocyathids--an enigmatic invertebrate animal that went extinct some 510 million years ago, never surviving past the early Cambrian; also present there in rocks over a half billion years old are locally common trilobites, plus annelid and arthropod trails, and early echinoderms.
• Plant Fossils At The La Porte Hydraulic Gold Mine, California: Journey to a long-abandoned hydraulic gold mine in the neighborhood of La Porte, northern Sierra Nevada, California, to explore the upper Eocene La Porte Tuff, which yields some 43 species of Cenozoic plants, mainly a bounty of beautifully preserved leaves 34.2 million years old.
• A Visit To Ammonite Canyon, Nevada: Explore one of the best-exposed, most complete fossiliferous marine late Triassic through early Jurassic geologic sections in the world--a place where the important end-time Triassic mass extinction has been preserved in the paleontological record. Lots of key species of ammonites, brachiopods, corals, gastropods and pelecypods.
• Fossil Plants At The Chalk Bluff Hydraulic Gold Mine, California: Take a field trip to the Chalk Bluff hydraulic gold mine, western foothills of California's Sierra Nevada, for leaves, seeds, flowering structures, and petrified wood from some 70 species of middle Eocene plants.
• Field Trip To The Alexander Hills Fossil District, Mojave Desert, California: Visit a locality outside the southern sector of Death Valley National Park to explore a paleontological wonderland that produces: Precambrian stromatolites over a billion years old; early skeletonized eukaryotic cells of testate amoebae over three-quarters of billion years old; early Cambrian trilobites, archaeocyathids, annelid trails, arthropod tracks, and echinoderm material; Pliocene-Pleistocene vertebrate and invertebrate faunas; and late middle Miocene camel tracks, petrified palm wood, petrified dicotlyedon wood, and permineralized grasses.
• Fossils In Millard County, Utah: Take virtual field trips to two world-famous fossil localities in Millard County, Utah--Wheeler Amphitheater in the trilobite-bearing middle Cambrian Wheeler Shale; and Fossil Mountain in the brachiopod-ostracod-gastropod-echinoderm-trilobite rich lower Ordovician Pogonip Group.
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• Field Trip To The Kettleman Hills Fossil District, 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 bony tumors--found nowhere else, save the Kettleman Hills), among many other paleontological remains.
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• Fossils Along The Loneliest Road In America: Investigate the extraordinary fossil wealth along some 230 miles of The Loneliest Road In America--US Highway 50 from the vicinity of Eureka, Nevada, to Delta in Millard County, Utah. Includes on-site images and photographs of representative fossils (with detailed explanatory text captions) from every geologic rock deposit I have personally explored in the neighborhood of that stretch of Great Basin asphalt. The paleontologic material ranges in geologic age from the middle Eocene (about 48 million years ago) to middle Cambrian (approximately 505 million years old).
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• Fossil Plants At Aldrich Hill, Western 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 solely 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.
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• Field Trip To Pleistocene Lake Manix, California: Go on a virtual field trip to the classic, fossiliferous badlands carved in the Upper Pleistocene Manix Formation, Mojave Desert, California. It's a special place that yields beaucoup fossil remains, including fresh water mollusks, fish (the Mojave Tui Chub), birds and mammals.
• Trilobites In The Nopah Range, Inyo County, California: Travel 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.
• 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.
• A Visit To The Fossil Beds At Union Wash, Inyo County California: A virtual field trip to the fabulous ammonoid accumulations in the Lower Triassic Union Wash Formation, Inyo County, California--situated in the shadows of Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous United States.
• 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 prominent Mudmound/Biohern. Lots of fossils can be found there, including silicified brachiopods, trilobites, nautiloids, echinoderms, bryozoans, ostracodes and conodonts.
• 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.
• Early Cambrian Fossils In Western Nevada: Explore a 518-million-year-old fossil locality several miles north of Death Valley National Park, in Esmeralda County, Nevada, where the Lower Cambrian Harkless Formation yields the largest single assemblage of Early Cambrian 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.
• 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.
• 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 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.
• 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 deciduous 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, California: Take a ride to the crest of the High Inyo Mountains to find abundant ammonoids and pelecypods--plus, some shark teeth and 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.
• Fossil Plants And Insects At Bull Run, Nevada: Head into the deep backcountry of Nevada to collect fossils from the famous Late Eocene Chicken Creek Formation, which yields, in addition to abundant fossil fly larvae, a paleobotanically wonderful 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.
• 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 540-510 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.
• Petrified Wood From The Shinarump Conglomerate: An image of a chunk of petrified wood I collected from the Upper Triassic Shinarump Conglomerate, outside of Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado.
• Fossil Giant Sequoia Foliage From Nevada: Images of the youngest fossil foliage from a giant sequoia ever discovered in the geologic record--the specimen is Lower Pliocene in geologic age, around 5 million years old.
• Some Favorite Fossil Brachiopods Of Mine: Images of several fossil brachiopods I have collected over the years from Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic-age rocks.
• For information on what can and cannot be collected legally from America's Public Lands, take a look at Fossils On America's Public Lands and Collecting On Public Lands--brochures that the Bureau Of Land Management has allowed me to transcribe.
• In Search Of Vanished Ages--Field Trips To Fossil Localities In California, Nevada, And Utah--My fossils-related field trips in full print book form (pdf). 98,703 words (equivalent to a medium-size hard cover work of non-fiction); 250 printed pages (equivalent to about 380 pages in hard cover book form); 27 chapters; 30 individual field trips to places of paleontological interest; 60 photographs--representative on-site images and pictures of fossils from each locality visited.

• United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 264-J: Fossils Birds From Manix Lake California, by Hildegarde Howard.
• United States Geological Survey Bulletin 1928: Stratigraphy of the Lower And Middle(?) Triassic Union Wash Formation, East-Central California by Paul Stone, Calvin H. Stevens, and Michael J. Orchard.
• United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 483-F: An Unusual Lower Cambrian Trilobite Fauna From Nevada by Allison R. Palmer.
• United States Geological Survey Bulletin 1527: Age Of The Coso Formation, Inyo County, California by C. R. Bacon, D. M. Giovannetti, W. A. Duffield, W. A. Dalrymple and R. E. Drake.