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Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park, Nevada


Sagebrush Steve

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Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park is not your traditional museum, but it is home to Nevada’s state fossil, the ichthyosaur, so I thought I would write about it here.  It’s in the middle of the state, far from any civilization.  For years I had seen it marked on maps but I didn’t know anything about it.  Since the word “Ichthyosaur” was prominent in the park’s name, I knew I would someday have to go there.  So several years ago on my way to southern Utah for a week of photography, I took a detour to check it out.  (You can read about the Utah part of my journey in several of my blog entries here but there is no mention of fossils in that part of the trip.)

 

To get there from Reno, most people would take US Highway 50 to Nevada Route 361, then south to Nevada Route 844 and east to the park.  This keeps you on paved roads for all but the last few miles to the park. But on these kinds of trips I subscribe to the axiom, “Never take an Interstate Highway when a 2-lane road is an option, and never take a 2-lane road when a dirt road will get you there.”  So I decided to take US Highway 50 to Eastgate, then south on a dirt road to the ghost towns of Ione and Berlin, and then a couple more miles to the ichthyosaurs.  When I reached Eastgate (not a town, just a private ranch off the side of the road), I shifted my SUV into four-wheel-drive mode and headed out.  The dirt road portion is about a 30 mile drive down the middle of the Ione Valley.  Don’t expect Google Maps to show you this route, you will need a good AAA paper map to find it.

 

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It was a bright summer day and I was the only one on the dirt road.  The sagebrush was barely knee high, with clear views for 10 miles in all directions, framed by the Paradise Mountains to the west and the Shoshone Mountains to the east.  It is the classic basin-and-range topography that sprawls across most of Nevada.  Besides jackrabbits and coyotes, on occasion I would see the rare American pronghorn, often incorrectly called an antelope but really the last surviving member of an otherwise extinct artiodactyl family.

 

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To get to the ichthyosaurs you drive past the ghost town of Berlin, a remnant of the gold mining days of the late 1800s.  The ichthyosaurs are in a quarry on the ground, protected by a building similar to the larger building at Dinosaur National Monument in Utah.  The day I arrived I was the only visitor, and no one else showed up while I was there.  I spent some time talking to the single ranger on site, a younger guy who had been there just a few months.  He was promoted and transferred there to get experience in interpretation to round out the law enforcement experience of his previous assignment at a state recreation area.  With only a few visitors a day (and some days in winter where there are none), he didn’t get a lot of opportunity.

 

The ichthyosaurs are a late Triassic species called Shonisaurus, named after the nearby mountains.  They are apparently the largest known species, with lengths up to 60 feet. A life-size sculpture on a wall near the building makes them look like giant Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons.  There are several complete specimens embedded in the rock of the quarry together with numerous fragments (there are no mounted skeletons).  It’s a rather small quarry with no excavations currently underway, and you can see it all within an hour.  After touring the site I spent the night at the nearby campground, again the only one there.  It was a dark night with an incredible view of the stars, accompanied by an occasional coyote serenade.    

 

If you go, do it for the total experience of the trip, not just the ichthyosaurs.  Take time to explore the Berlin ghost town and spend a night camping out.  Be sure to take all the supplies you need, as there are no towns nearby.  Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park is a great place to get away from the rush of civilization and discover a bit of history and prehistory in a remote location.

 

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Ghost town of Berlin:

 

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