Rich Barclay & Bob Raynolds explaining the large perspective of the geology of the western U.S. and Pacific plates.
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"Van-side" lecture prior to hike down into West Bijou Creek
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Diversity of flora at West Bijou Creek. (Looks like a modern day VW Van painted with ancient flora!)
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Pine trees in distance are in D2. They like well-drained, coarser sediments.
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Outcrop known as "Grace's Oven". We drew diagrams of this location and excavated some fossil leaves.
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Kirk Johnson (left) & Bob Raynolds (right) while they were both drawing the outcrop to show differences in style and content.
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Some fossil leaves found at Grace's Oven.
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Fossil leaf found at Grace's Oven.
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A very large concretion believe to be a fossil tree trunk. An interesting phenomenon is that these are usually all found pointing in a parallel direction, believed to be downstream in the ancient river.
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Kirk demonstrating a method of determining whether a fragment is bone or rock. Bone is very porous and it will stick to your tongue, while other material will not. Simple, but effective.
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Hunting for bone fragments in Cretaceous sediments.
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Marine dinosaur rib (hadrosaur?) found "exploded" from weathering at the surface. Dinosaur rib was 3.6 meters below the K-T boundary (or approximately 30-40K years based on average deposition rates in the Denver Basin).
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Turtle shell fragments found in Cretaceous sediments.
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Palm roots along coal layer at West Bijou Creek. Note 0.5 mm pencil lead in picture for scale. It's exactly the same size as the palm roots.
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Rich Barclay in an outcrop named "Big Phone Booth". Bottom of outcrop is carbonaceous mudstone, above that is coal (lignite), then a white ash layer, then Paleocene plants. Thus, the K-T boundary has been crossed in this single outcrop. Evidence of K-T is present in pollen, shocked quartz, Iridium and a 50% extinction rate of plants.
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Panoramic image of K/T boundary at West Bijou Creek (4 images). Outcrop named "Big Phone Booth". Bottom of outcrop is carbonaceous mudstone, above that is coal (lignite), then a white ash layer, then Paleocene plants. Thus, the K-T boundary has been crossed in this single outcrop. Evidence of K-T is present in pollen, shocked quartz, Iridium and a 50% extinction rate of plants.
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Sherman (a NYC resident attending Yale) experiences a little bit of the West.
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Rich Barclay exclaims, "Wait a minute! This isn't a fossil snake!!"
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Steve Wagner & bull snake
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Nothing like a cold beer at camp after a long, hot day in the sun!
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Stretching aching muscles
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