Green River Formation Leaf and Insect Fossil Trip

[Fossilized Dad]

Hi All,

 

This past summer, my daughter and I went to a couple of sites in the Green River Formation to look for leaf and insect fossils. Here's a video we made about our trip and findings. We also visited the Field House of Natural History in Vernal and the curator took us on a tour of the collection.

 

cheers,

 

Lloyd

 

 

 

Edited February 1, 2022 by Fossilized Dad

[minnbuckeye]

Great video and finds!  Out of all my fossil hunting trips I have taken around the USA, two trips to the Green River Formation (Douglas Pass) have been my worst in terms of productivity. They were fruitless (leafless and insectless) for me. So your finds make me want to return and finally be successful!!!

Edited February 1, 2022 by minnbuckeye

[digit]

Another wonderful video! Makes me want to go there....

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Fossilized Dad]

7 hours ago, minnbuckeye said:

Great video and finds!  Out of all my fossil hunting trips I have taken around the USA, two trips to the Green River Formation (Douglas Pass) have been my worst in terms of productivity. They were fruitless (leafless and insectless) for me. So your finds make me want to return and finally be successful!!!

Sorry those trips weren't so good for you. The curator at the Field House of Natural History recommended that we just look mostly at the pieces that people had left--plenty to look at--and that's where we found some really good leaves. I think you can be successful given enough time looking at the shale all over the place. It can be broken in half too, as many are quite wide.

 

Lloyd

[Bonehunter]

Where did you go?- there's very little public land to hunt on in Wyoming.....went there in September to American Fossil- perfect weather and plenty of Knightia/other common fish-my entire fossil room floor is covered in them to work on this winter......very cool having her find fossils!!!- that's a good start!!..Bone 

[Sjfriend]

Sounds like a fun trip! Wish I would have known about all this when I lived in Utah. Well, I was a young teen with no means of getting there on my own so thanks for the report.

[hadrosauridae]

Great video report!  Wish I had found that much on my Utah trip!

[jpc]

10 hours ago, Bonehunter said:

Where did you go?- there's very little public land to hunt on in Wyoming.....went there in September to American Fossil- perfect weather and plenty of Knightia/other common fish-my entire fossil room floor is covered in them to work on this winter......very cool having her find fossils!!!- that's a good start!!..Bone 

The leaf and insect beds are not in Wyoming.  They are in Utah and Colorado.  As for Wyoming, the best is to go to the commercial quarries.  Most of the fish beds are on BLM land where you are not allowed to collect vertebrate fossils.  

[Jeffrey P]

Wonderful video! Really liked seeing it. Thanks for sharing your western adventures. Makes me want to return there soon. 

[FossilNerd]

Awesome video! It gives me hope that my daughter will join me in the hunt one day.  

[Fossilized Dad]

On 2/1/2022 at 11:57 PM, Bonehunter said:

Where did you go?- there's very little public land to hunt on in Wyoming.....went there in September to American Fossil- perfect weather and plenty of Knightia/other common fish-my entire fossil room floor is covered in them to work on this winter......very cool having her find fossils!!!- that's a good start!!..Bone 

We also went to American Fossil! Sounds like you found so much there! We will be sharing about that soon. This video is from Utah and Colorado, though. I was under the impression that there was lots of public land in Wyoming. We did go to BLM lands also looking for the Blue Forest petrified wood.

 

best wishes,

 

Lloyd

[digit]

11 minutes ago, Fossilized Dad said:

We did go to BLM lands also looking for the Blue Forest petrified wood.

I have some nice material from the Blue Forest. Tammy and I went there after our last trip "fishing" the Green River Formation. Our guide (Robert) was helping me try to dig down through the concrete-like hardened matrix to prospect for some larger logs. For a Flatlander living near sea level the ~9100 foot elevation meant that I got winded quickly and had to take frequent breaks. In the end, I had more fun on this short visit simply collecting surface finds. Initially, I picked up anything identifiable as petrified wood but I soon realized the site was covered with small eroding bits of pet wood and had to get a bit more selective. We only kept small truck or branch sections that were "full round" or that showed interesting scars from branch/twig bases.

 

Robert mentioned that he had taken someone out just a few weeks back and they located and excavated about a 4 foot length of decent diameter petrified tree trunk. Took them some time and effort to dig it out and then a lot more effort to lug it back to the truck (which couldn't go all the way into the site). The customer was only interested in a short cross-section of the log which they cut and polished and shipped back to him. He told them to keep the rest which they slabbed and polished and sold. Worked out well for both of them.

 

Would love to make it back out there--I have some fond memories and some polished chunks that are on display in the house so I can always remember that trip.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

P.S.: Here are a couple of images of me before and after I got wise and ditched the shovel and started surface collecting.

 

         

 

[jpc]

2 hours ago, digit said:

 For a Flatlander living near sea level the ~9100 foot elevation meant that 

          

 

As I read this I have the Blue Forest topo map on my desk.  It is actually at about 6500 feet above sea level.  Still enough to knock some flatlanders out.  

[digit]

Indeed! >GASP<

 

I wonder where I was out west where I remember being told it was > 9K elevation? My brain was probably too oxygen starved to record that.

 

I'm still acclimating to Gainesville at 177 feet from Boca Raton which was only 13 feet.  Y'all have got driveways out west that have more elevational change than the entire state of Florida. 

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken