| Viewing perspective is roughly southeast. A westbound train rips through leaf-bearing railroad cut near Verdi, Washoe County, Nevada. The carbonized leaves occur in the sandstones and diatomaceous shales (composed almost entirely of diatoms, a microscopic photosynthesizing single-celled algae) of the upper Miocene Hunter Creek Sandstone, dated by radiometric analyses at 5.8 million years old. Image courtesy Narodnie Mstiteli. |