Click on the images for larger pictures. Left--The old camping site at Little Antelope Summit (elevation 7,438 feet), White Pine County, Nevada, that travelers along the Loneliest Road in American (US Highway 50) used to utilize as a de facto base camp/rest stop.

Right--A visitor to the old camping site at Little Antelope Summit (elevation 7,438 feet), White Pine County, Nevada, along the Loneliest Road in American (US Highway 50), cooks up some tasty meats for dinner.

Click on the images for larger pictures. Left--Two Great Basin explorers examine an exposure of fossiliferous limestone in the vicinity of Little Antelope Summit, White Pine County, Nevada, that produces beaucoup fresh water coiled gastropods from a middle Eocene geologic rock unit that is correlated statigraphically with an Eocene sedimentary section of the upper Cretaceous to middle Eocene Sheep Pass Formation, White Pine County, Nevada. The Sheep Pass deposit yields abundant fresh water gastropods, pelecypods (AKA, the bivalves), and ostrocods (a minute bivalved crustacean--sometimes colloquially called a seed shrimp)--in addition to roughly 40 species of vertebrate remains: amphibians (spectacular complete frog skeletons, in particular), reptiles, birds, and early extinct mammals--the first confirmed Eocene vertebrate fossil-bearing geologic rock unit recognized from the Great Basin district.

Right--A Google Earth street car perspective that I edited and processed through photoshop. Every rock within view belongs to the upper Cretaceous to middle Eocene Sheep Pass Formation, White Pine County, Nevada. The Sheep Pass geologic interval produces significant paleontological specimens--complete frog skeletons, reptiles, birds, mammals, gastropods, pelecypods, and ostracods.

Click on the images for larger pictures. Left--Exposures of the richly fossiliferous upper Cretaceous to middle Eocene Sheep Pass Formation, White Pine County, Nevada, occur in the hills in middleground of photograph. The Sheep Pass deposit yields locally abundant fresh water gastropods, pelecypods (AKA, the bivalves), and ostrocods (a minute bivalved crustacean--sometimes colloquially called a seed shrimp)--in addition to roughly 40 species of vertebrate remains: amphibians (spectacular complete frog skeletons, in particular), reptiles, birds, and early extinct mammals--the first confirmed Eocene vertebrate fossil-bearing geologic rock unit recognized from the Great Basin district. Right--Geologist/paleontologist Dr. Peter A. Druschke (who's discovered several fantastic fossil frog specimens in Nevada) examines the amphibian-bearing upper Cretaceous to middle Eocene Sheep Pass Formation in White Pine County, Nevada.

Photographs courtesy Amy Henrici--collection manager for the Section of Vertebrate Paleontology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History Museum; I edited and processed the images through photoshop.

Click on the images for larger pictures. Left--A Google Maps street car perspective that I edited and processed through photoshop. Here's a roadcut in White Pine County, Nevada, that exposes the lower member of the middle Permian Arcturus Formation--primarily a medium gray limestone with subordinate interbeds of siltstone and sandstone; total thickness is roughly 1,200 to 1,500 feet thick.

Right--A Google Maps street car perspective that I edited and processed through photoshop. A roadcut in White Pine County, Nevada, that exposes the exact geologic contact between the lower and upper members of the middle Permian Arcturus Formation. The grayish rocks represent the lower limestone member, while that reddish-brown slope lies within the upper Arcturus member, which consists of sandstone and siltstones interlayered with platy limestone; thickness of the upper member is approximately 1,500 to 1,600 feet. The middle Permian Arcturus Formation is locally quite fossiliferous, bearing a distinctive invertebrate fauna of gastropods, pelecypods (the bivalves), brachiopods, corals, foraminifers, bryozoans, and echinoderm spines (which frequently weather free from the sedimentary matrix by the zillions).

Click on the images for larger pictures. Left--A Google Maps street car perspective that I edited and processed through photoshop. A roadcut in White Pine County, Nevada, that exposes the precise geologic contact between the lower Permian Riepe Spring Limestone and the lower to middle Permian Reipetown Formation (formerly called the Rib Hill Sandstone). That prominent grayish ridge along the slope at roughly upper center-left lies in the Riepe Spring Limestone; the subdued rubble-strewn slope to left edge of photograph is the overlying and geologically younger Riepetown Formation (which directly underlies the middle Permian Arcturus Formation). The Riepetown is dominantly around 1,100 to 1,200 feet of yellow-gray siltstone and sandstone, with occasional interlayered beds of yellowish-gray dolomite and limestone. A coarse-grained medium-gray bioclastic limestone occurs at the base, near the contact with the underlying Riepe Spring Limestone. The Reipetown yields locally abundant conodonts (minute tooth-like structures, unrelated to modern jaws, that helped process food in an extinct lamprey eel-like organism) fusulinids, bryozoans, pelecypods, and various invertebrate tracks.

Right--A Google Maps street car perspective that I edited and processed through photoshop. A road in White Pine County, Nevada, passes through the lower Permian Riepe Spring Limestone. Every rock in view, to the bend in highway up ahead, belongs to the fossiliferous Riepe Sping Limestone, which consists of 275 to 350 feet of generally fine to moderately crystalline medium to dark gray bioclastic limestone. Prominent limestone ledges often produce prodigious numbers of coral specimens; fusulinid coquinas common. Brachiopods, bryozoans, conodonts, and crinoid stems are locally abundant, as well.

Click on the images for larger pictures. Four views of the lower to middle Pennsylvanian Ely Limestone, White Pine County, Nevada. Top left and bottom left are Google Maps street car perspective images; bottom right is a Google Earth street car photograph; and top right shows an eager seeker of Pennsylvanian paleontology investigating an outcrop of the lower to middle Pennsylvanian Ely Limestone. I edited and processed all the Google photographs through photoshop.

The Ely Limestone consists of approximately 2,450 to 2,600 feet of light olive-gray to brownish-gray thin to thick-bedded chert-rich limestone, with occasional sandstone and siltstone horizons in its upper portions. It bears a prolific invertebrate fossil fauna--producing: algae (encrusting and phylloid varieties, Tubiphytes, Komia, Osagia, stromatolites); foraminiferera (fusulinids, endothyrids); sponges (AKA, the Porifiera: Chaetetes and spicules); brachiopods (all three primary shell types--punctate, impunctate, pseudo-punctate--plus, spines); corals (extinct tabulate and rugose forms--some coral heads up to five feet across); bryozoans (twig-like, encrusting, and fenstrate); mollusks (gastropods, pelecypods, ammonoids, and several miscellaneous kinds); arthropods (trilobites and ostroacods); echinoderms (crinoids and echinoid spines); and conodonts (diminutive tooth-like denticles, unrelated to modern jaws, that served to enable food gathering in an extinct lamprey eel-like organism).

Click on the images for larger pictures. Left--The CJ7 jeep is facing excellent fossiliferous exposures of the lower to middle Devonian Nevada Formation in White Pine County, Nevada. Right--An enthusiastic Devonian Period adventurer explores fossil-bearing outcrops of the lower to middle Devonian Nevada Formation in White Pine County, Nevada, which here yields abundant beautiful brachiopods that weather out of the calcareous sediments whole and intact. Elsewhere, the Nevada Formation produces numerous kinds of corals, as well.

Note--The Nevada Formation of long-held, time-honored usage represented five regionally mappable subunits, or members, which in ascending order or geologic age consisted of: Beacon Peak Dolomite; Oxyoke Canyon Sandstone; Sentinel Mountain Dolomite; Woodpecker Limestone; and Bay State Dolomite. Current stratigraphic convention abandons the term Nevada Formation altogether in favor of elevating to full formational rank all five individual members. Herein, though, I summarily reject that stratigraphic reorganization and continue to use the older, more appropriate designation--Nevada Formation, retaining as distinct subunits the five recognizeable members.

Click on the images for larger pictures. Top to bottom, left to right: Photographs courtesy--Bryan Chernic; Sydney Martinez; Sydney Martinez; Bryan Chernick. I edited and processed the images with photoshop.

In late 1867 prospectors discovered rich silver ore bodies on Treasure Hill, but in quick time they proved to be shallow mineral reserves subject to rapid exploitation. By the end of 1868 some 10,000 adventurers had flocked to the district--most suffering through the typically severe winter conditions of eastern Nevada in hastily and poorly constructed mud huts, dugouts, houses of rough timber, and cotton tents. Water, timber, land, and mineral rights were all claimed, sold, and re-claimed many times over in a delirium of inflated speculation. Give the planners some credit, though. Before even a single child had appeared in Hamilton, citizens had already organized a school district complete with an elected board of trustees and a school site.

By March, 1869, Hamilton became the county seat of White Pine County. Approximately 20,000 folks had rushed in. The downtown district featured 101 saloons, 59 general stores, dozens of lawyers, doctors, churches, fraternal orders, fire companies, banks, jewelers, theaters, miners' union, skating rinks, auction houses, breweries, a soda factory, gunsmiths, pawnbrokers, express facilities, and even a daily paper--the Daily Inland Impire.

During the flush times, Hamilton had 195 incorporated mining companies, with stocks valued at over 70 million dollars. The peak years of mineral production were 1869 and 1970, when ore companies extracted $1,823,868 and $2,137,801 worth, respectively, from the mines.

But the boom subsided quickly. A census conducted in 1870 showed that Hamilton's population had dropped to 6,800. A primary explanation for the sudden decrease was a local depression precipitated by uncertainty over the future of mining development. The shallow silver resources were vanishing, and speculators discovered that they could no longer realize up to $20,000 a crack for a "hole in the ground." By the hundreds miners packed up their beans and blankets and walked off. Hamilton's merchants also began to move out en mass.

Still, Hamilton hung on for several additional years, even managing to survive the devastating fires of 1873 and 1885. Eventually, though, when Hamilton lost the county seat to Ely in 1887, the end was in sight. A minor resurgence of mineral interest in 1925 brought in a few hundred people, but the mini-boom went bust in a hurry and Hamilton returned to the ghosts.

Click on the images for larger pictures. Left--Freshwater mollusks from the lower Eocene section of the upper Cretaceous to middle Eocene Sheep Pass Formation, White Pine County, Nevada. The specimens can be assigned to the genus Biomphalaria.

Right--Freshwater mollusks from the latest Cretaceous to middle Eocene Sheep Pass Formation, White Pine County, Nevada. Top row, left to right: (A) Sphaerium; (B) Psidium; (C) Hydrobia; (D)Valvata subumbilicata; (E) Valvata bicinta. Second row, left to right: (F) Lymnaea similis; (G) Lymnaeidae; (H) Lymnaea; (I) Lymnaea; (J) Physa; (K) Physa longiuscula. Third row, left to right: (L) Biomphalaria sequalis; (M) Biomphalaria storchi; (N) Biomphalaria psuedoammonius; (S) Helix; Fourth row, left to right: (O) Pupilla; (P) Chaenaxis; (Q) Vertigo; (R) Vertigo arenula; (T) Glyterpes rotundata. Photograph courtesy a specific technical document.

Click on the images for larger pictures. Left--Different viewing perspectives of the same left mandibular ramus (left lower jaw bone) from an extinct tapir, called scientically Fouchia elyensis. From the early middle Eocene section of the upper Cretaceous to middle Eocene Sheep Pass Formation, White Pine County, Nevada. Scale at left-center is in millimeters; longer scale is roughly upper center is 3 centimeters long. Photograph courtesy Dr. Robert J. Emry. I edited and processed the image with photoshop.

Right--Tapir jaw material from the lower middle Eocene section of the upper Cretaceous to middle Eocene Sheep Pass Formation, White Pine County, Nevada. Scale near top is one centimeter long. Photograph courtesy Dr. Robert J. Emry. I edited and processed the image through photoshop.

Click on the images for larger pictures. Left--Scientific cross-sections of fusulinids from the middle Permian Arcturus Formation, White Pine County, Nevada. Photograph courtesy Raymond L. Knight; I edited and processed the image with photoshop. Specimens: 1-3--Fusulinella divexa; 4-6--Triticites secalicus oryziformis; 7-10 and 13-14--Schwagerina guembeli; 11-12--Schwagerina medullaris.

Right--Scientific cross-sections of fusulinids from the middle Permian Arcturus Formation, White Pine County, Nevada. Photograph courtesy Raymond L. Knight; I edited and processed the image with photoshop. Specimens: 1 and 4--Parafusulina superlata; 2,3 and 6--Parafusulina sublinearis; 5 and 7--Parafusulina splendens.

Click on the images for larger pictures. Left--Conodonts (minute tooth to jaw-like structures, unrelated to modern jaws, that served as a unique food-gathering apparatus in an extinct lamprey eel-like animal) from the lower to middle Permian Reipetown Formation (formerly called the Rib Hill Sandstone), White Pine County, Nevada. Photograph courtesy David L. Clark; I edited and processed the image through photoshop. Specimens: 1-2--Anchignanthodus minutes; 3--Anchignanthodus typicalis; 4-5 New genus; 6-7--Idiognanthodus ellisoni; 8-11--Neogondolella biselli; 12-18--Sweetognanthus whitei.

Right--Conodonts (minute tooth to jaw-like structures, unrelated to modern jaws, that served as a unique food-gathering apparatus in an extinct lamprey eel-like animal) from the lower Permian Reipe Spring Limestone, White Pine County, Nevada. Photograph courtesy David L. Clark; I edited and processed the image through photoshop. Specimens: 12--Ozarkodinid element; 13--Adetognathus gigantus; 14-16--Gondolella bella; 17--Gnathodus roundyi.

Click on the images for larger pictures. Left--A pedicle view of the brachiopod Linoproductus. The specimen happens to represent my earliest exposure to fossil brachiopods. My father collected it from the lower to middle Pennsylvanian Ely Limestone during his summer field mapping project in White Pine County, Nevada, the last of many courses he completed to successfully attain a Bachelor Of Science Degree in geology from the University of Southern California (he went on to specialize in engineering geology, with a Master of Science degree in engineering geology from the University of Southern California), and then gave it to me upon returning when I was a youngster. This particular Linoproductus came from low in the Ely section, near the contact with the underlying upper Mississippian Diamond Peak Formation, so the brach is certainly early Pennsylvanian in geologic age. It has been silicified, by the way, replaced by silicon dioxide, lending to it a nice silvery sheen.

Right--A series of rather uncommon Paleozoic Era terebratuloid brachiopods from the lower to middle Pennsylvanian Ely Limestone, White Pine County, Nevada. Genus-species is Cryptacanthia savagei. Photograph courtesy Alberto Perez-Huerta; I edited and processed the image through photoshop.

Click on the images for larger pictures. Left--A coral of the genus Crantaniophyllum from exposures of the lower to middle Pennsylvanian Ely Limetone in western Millard County, Utah, just east of the boundary with White Pine County, Nevada. Photograph by an anonymous individual on the Net; I edited and processed the image through photoshop.

Right--A series of ostracods (a diminutive bi-valved crustacean) from exposures of the lower to middle Pennsylvanian Ely Limestone in western Millard County, Utah, just east of the boundary with White Pine County, Nevada. Photograph courtesy Samiha Mamoud Zazou; I edited and processed the image through photoshop.

Click on the images for larger pictures. Left--An extinct horn coral, possibly genus Caninia, from the upper Mississippian Diamond Peak Formation, Elko County, Nevada, a number of miles north of the border with White Pine County, Nevada. Photograph courtesy a person who goes by the cyber-name KOI; I edited and processed the image through photoshop.

Right--Bellerophon gastropods from the upper Mississippian Diamond Peak Formation, White Pine County, Nevada. Photograph courtesy Mackenzie Gordon Jr. and Ellis L. Yochelson; I edited and processed the image through photoshop. Specimens: A-G--Euphemites nevadensis; H-N--Bellerophon vespertinus; O-Q--Retispira nolani; R-U--Retispira albipinensis.

Click on the images for larger pictures. Left--Gastropods from the upper Mississippian Diamond Peak Formation, White Pine County, Nevada. Photograph courtesy Mackenzie Gordon Jr. and Ellis L. Yochelson; I edited and processed the image through photoshop. Specimens: A-C--Platyceras sp.; D-F--Turbonitella hiserialis; G, F--Naticopsis sp.; I-K--Naticopsis glomerosa; L-W--Straparollus intermedius; X-Z--Straparollus sp.

Right--Gastropods from the upper Mississippian Diamond Peak Formation, White Pine County, Nevada. Photograph courtesy Mackenzie Gordon Jr. and Ellis L. Yochelson; I edited and processed the image through photoshop. Specimens: A-C--Microdoma sp.; D-F--Hammatospira bellula; G-I--Neilsonia welleri; J-M--Compsonema fragile; N, O--Donaldina sp.; P--Meekospira sp.; Q-S--Strophostylus tantallus; T, U--Strophostylus nevadensis; V-X, NN-PP--Worthenia temuleanata; Y--Achsina sp.; Z, B-B, F-F--Gabrocingulum seminumdum; CC--Gabrocingulum quadrigatum; DD--Trepospira sp.; GG-JJ--Catazona rudilirata; KK-MM--Platyzona sp.

Click on the images for larger pictures. Left and right--Ostracods (a minute bi-balved crustacean) from the middle to upper Devonian Devils Gate Limestone, Eureka County, a number of miles west of the western border of White Pine County, Nevada. The specimens are of middle Devonian geologic age. Photographs courtesy Jean-Georges Casier, Ivan Berra, Ewa Olempska, Charles Sandberg, and Alain Preat; I edited and processed the images through photoshop.

Specimens for image at left: A. Amphissites sp. A. Car. carapace in right lateral (A1) and dorsal (A2) views. B, C. Youngiella cf. mica Rozhdestvenskaja, 1972. B. Carapace in right lateral view. C. Carapace in dorsal view. D. Rozhdestvenskayites sp. A. Carapace in left lateral (D1) and dorsal (D2) views. E. Coelonella sp. A. Carapace in left lateral (E1) and dorsal (E2) views. F, G. Knoxiella? rauseri (Tschigova, 1977). F. Carapace in left lateral (F1) and dorsal (F2) views. G. Carapace in right lateral view. Knoxiella? sp.Aaff. K. rauseri (Tschigova, 1977). Carapace in left lateral (H1) and dorsal (H2)views. I. Knoxiella sp. B aff. K. ornata Lethiers, 1981. Carapace in left lateral view. J. Knoxiella sp. C aff. K. ornata Lethiers, 1981. Carapace in right lateral (J1) and dorsal (J2) views. K, L, M. Serenida dorsoplicata sp. nov. K. Holotype, carapace in left lateral (K1) and dorsal (K2) views. L. Carapace in right lateral (L1) and dorsal (L2) views. M. Carapace in left lateral view. N,O, P. Voronina? eureka sp. nov. N. Holotype, carapace in left lateral (N1) and dorsal (N2) views. O. Carapace in left lateral view. P. Carapace in right lateral view. Q. Westmontia devilensis Casier and Lethiers, 1997. Right valve in lateral view. Scale bars 200 um (roughly one one-hundreth of an inch).

Specimens for image at right: A, B. Westmontia devilensis Casier and Lethiers, 1997. A. Carapace in dorsal view. B. Carapace in left lateral view. C. Platycopina indet. Carapace in left lateral view. D. Plagionephrodes cf. medius (Loranger, 1963). Carapace in right lateral (D1) and dorsal (D2) views. E. Microcheilinella sp. A. Carapace in right lateral (E1) and dorsal (E2) views. F. Pachydomellidae? indet. Carapace in right lateral (F1) and dorsal (F2) views. G. Elliptocyprites lorangeri Lethiers, 1981. Carapace in right lateral (G1) and dorsal (G2) views. H. Cytherellina sp. A Carapace in right lateral (H1) and dorsal (H2) views. I. Bairdiacypris cf. martinae Casier and Lethiers, 1997. Carapace in right lateral view. J. Bairdia sp. A. Carapace in right lateral (J1) and dorsal (J2) views. K. Bairdia sp. B. Carapace in right lateral (K1) and dorsal (K2) views. L. Acratia sp. A aff. sp. 42 sensu Braun (1967). Carapace in right lateral (L1) and dorsal (L2) views. M, N. Acratia sp. B aff. sp. 271 sensu Braun (1967). M. Carapace in right lateral (M1) and dorsal (M2) views. N. Carapace in left lateral view. O. Acratia sp. C aff. 274 sensu Braun (1967). Carapace in right lateral (O1) and dorsal (O2) views. P. Cryptophyllus sp. A aff. sp. 11 sensu Braun (1967). Right valve in lateral view. Scale bars 200 um (roughly one one-hundredth of an inch).

Click on the images for larger pictures. Left--Trilobite cephalons (the head shield) from the upper Cambrian Dunderberg Shale, Eureka County, Nevada, a number of miles west of the western border of White Pine County, Nevada. Specimens: Top row, lef to right: 1--Irvingella eurekensis; 2, 3--Irvingella angustilimbatus. Second row, left to right: 4--Elvinia granulata; 5--Elvinia hamburgensis; 6-- Elvinia sp.; 7--Elvinia roemeri. Third row, left to right: 8--Elviniella sp.; 9, 10--Elviniella laevis. Fourth row, left to right: 11-13--Elburgia quinnensis; 14--Elviniella sp. Fifth row, left to right: 15--Elburgia quinnensis; 16, 17--Elburgia granulosa; 18--Olenusf wilsoni. Photograph courtesy Allison R. Palmer; I edited and processed the image through photoshop.

Right--A trilobite from the middle Cambrian Wheeler Shale, western Millard County, Utah, a number of miles east of the eastern border of White Pine County, Nevada. Specimen at left is called scientifically, Asaphiscus wheeleri. Photographed courtesy an anonymous individual from U-Dig Fossils. I edited and processed the image through photoshop.

• 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.
• Fossil Insects And Vertebrates On The Mojave Desert, California: Journey to two world-famous fossil sites in the middle Miocene Barstow Formation: one locality yields upwards of 50 species of fully three-dimensional, silicified freshwater insects, arachnids, and crustaceans that can be dissolved free and intact from calcareous concretions; a second Barstow Formation district provides vertebrate paleontologists with one of the greatest concentrations of Miocene mammal fossils yet recovered from North America--it's the type locality for the Bartovian State of the Miocene Epoch, 15.9 to 12.5 million years ago, with which all geologically time-equivalent rocks in North American are compared.
• 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.
• Fossil Plants, Insects And Frogs In The Vicinity Of Virginia City, Nevada: Journey to a western Nevada badlands district near Virginia City and the Comstock Lode to discover a bonanza of paleontology in the late middle Miocene Coal Valley Formation.
• Paleozoic Era Fossils At Mazourka Canyon, Inyo County, California: Visit a productive Paleozoic Era fossil-bearing area near Independence, California--along the east side of California's Owens Valley, with the great Sierra Nevada as a dramatic backdrop--a paleontologically fascinating place that yields a great assortment of invertebrate animals.
• Late Triassic Ichthyosaur And Invertebrate Fossils In Nevada: Journey to two classic, world-famous fossil localities in the Upper Triassic Luning Formation of Nevada--Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park and Coral Reef Canyon. At Berlin-Ichthyosaur, observe in-situ the remains of several gigantic ichthyosaur skeletons preserved in a fossil quarry; then head out into the hills, outside the state park, to find plentiful pelecypods, gastropods, brachiopods and ammonoids. At Coral Reef Canyon, find an amazing abundance of corals, sponges, brachiopods, echinoids (sea urchins), pelecypods, gastropods, belemnites and ammonoids.
• 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 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.
• A Visit To The Sharktooth Hill Bone Bed, Southern California: Travel to the dusty hills near Bakersfield, California, 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 16 to 15 million years old that yields over a hundred species of sharks, rays, bony 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.
• High Sierra Nevada Fossil Plants, Alpine County, California: Visit a remote fossil leaf and petrified wood locality in the Sierra Nevada, at an altitude over 8,600 feet, slightly above the local timberline, to find 7 million year-old specimens of cypress, Douglas-fir, White fir, evergreen live oak, and giant sequoia, among others.
• In Search Of Fossils In The Tin Mountain Limestone, California: Journey to the Death Valley area of Inyo County, California, to explore the highly fossiliferous Lower Mississippian Tin Mountain Limestone; visit three localities that provide easy access to a roughly 358 million year-old calcium carbate accumulation that contains well preserved corals, brachiopods, bryozoans, crinoids, and ostracods--among other major groups of invertebrate animals.
• 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.
• Late Miocene Fossil Leaves At Verdi, Washoe County, Nevada: Explore a fascinating fossil leaf locality not far from Reno, Nevada; find 18 species of plants that prove that 5.8 million years ago this part of the western Great Basin Desert would have resembled, floristically, California's lush green Gold Country, from Placerville south to Jackson.
• 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.
• Field Trip To A Vertebrate Fossil Locality In The Coso Range, California: Take a cyber-visit to the famous bone-bearing Pliocene Coso Formation, Coso Mountains, Inyo County, California; includes detailed text for the field trip, plus on-site images and photographs of vertebrate fossils.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.