Not too long ago, I uploaded to https://inyo7.coffeecup.com/precambrian/precambrian.html a new page,
entitled "Field Trip To The Alexander Hills Fossil District,
California." Includes a detailed text, with fully captioned on-site
images and photographs of fossils.

It's a fascinating paleontological place, indeed, situated outside the
southern sector of Death Valley National Park. The Precambrian sequence,
for example, not only yields stromatolites, concentrically laminated cyanobacterial structures roughly 1.2 billion years old, but also some
of Earth's earliest shell-bearing organisms, skeletal elements from
eukaryotic unicellular testate amoebae over three-quarters of a billion
years old. Miocene strata produce exceptionally well preserved petrified
palm and dicotyledon wood, permineralized grasses, and camel tracks. And
the Pliocene-Pleistocene section contains loads of vertebrate remains, including mammoths, a mastodon, camels, large and small horses, a llama,
a large antelope, microtine rodents (the voles, lemmings, and muskrats),
and a flamingo--plus, such invertebrate kinds as freshwater gastropods, ostracods (a diminutive bivalved crustacean), and diatoms (single-celled photosynthesizing algae).

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 4/18/2023 3:17 PM, Inyo wrote:

Not too long ago, I uploaded to https://inyo7.coffeecup.com/precambrian/precambrian.html a new page,
entitled "Field Trip To The Alexander Hills Fossil District,
California." Includes a detailed text, with fully captioned on-site
images and photographs of fossils.

It's a fascinating paleontological place, indeed, situated outside the southern sector of Death Valley National Park. The Precambrian sequence,
for example, not only yields stromatolites, concentrically laminated cyanobacterial structures roughly 1.2 billion years old, but also some
of Earth's earliest shell-bearing organisms, skeletal elements from eukaryotic unicellular testate amoebae over three-quarters of a billion
years old. Miocene strata produce exceptionally well preserved petrified
palm and dicotyledon wood, permineralized grasses, and camel tracks. And
the Pliocene-Pleistocene section contains loads of vertebrate remains, including mammoths, a mastodon, camels, large and small horses, a llama,
a large antelope, microtine rodents (the voles, lemmings, and muskrats),
and a flamingo--plus, such invertebrate kinds as freshwater gastropods, ostracods (a diminutive bivalved crustacean), and diatoms (single-celled photosynthesizing algae).

I neglected to mention that the early Cambrian sequence provides not
only the first trilobites in the regional stratigraphic succession, but
also archaeocyathids (extinct calcareous sponge), annelid and arthropod
tracks and trails (ichnofossils), and perhaps the earliest evidence of echinoderms in the fossil record.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tuesday, April 18, 2023 at 4:28:48 PM UTC-7, Inyo wrote:

On 4/18/2023 3:17 PM, Inyo wrote:

Not too long ago, I uploaded to https://inyo7.coffeecup.com/precambrian/precambrian.html a new page, entitled "Field Trip To The Alexander Hills Fossil District,
California." Includes a detailed text, with fully captioned on-site
images and photographs of fossils.

It's a fascinating paleontological place, indeed, situated outside the southern sector of Death Valley National Park. The Precambrian sequence, for example, not only yields stromatolites, concentrically laminated cyanobacterial structures roughly 1.2 billion years old, but also some
of Earth's earliest shell-bearing organisms, skeletal elements from eukaryotic unicellular testate amoebae over three-quarters of a billion years old. Miocene strata produce exceptionally well preserved petrified palm and dicotyledon wood, permineralized grasses, and camel tracks. And the Pliocene-Pleistocene section contains loads of vertebrate remains, including mammoths, a mastodon, camels, large and small horses, a llama,
a large antelope, microtine rodents (the voles, lemmings, and muskrats), and a flamingo--plus, such invertebrate kinds as freshwater gastropods, ostracods (a diminutive bivalved crustacean), and diatoms (single-celled photosynthesizing algae).

I neglected to mention that the early Cambrian sequence provides not
only the first trilobites in the regional stratigraphic succession, but
also archaeocyathids (extinct calcareous sponge), annelid and arthropod tracks and trails (ichnofossils), and perhaps the earliest evidence of echinoderms in the fossil record.

Thanks for this guide! The earliest echinoderms (such as helicoplacoids) were very
loosely bonded creatures. The location in the White Mountains containing one of the
denser deposits of them present many shale facies with many disaggregated platelets,
but no full specimens. If there were even earlier echinoderm organisms, they may have
been at least as loosely contructed. The Poleta formation at the same location presents
many complete trilobite specimens. Interestingly many of them exhibit plastic deformation
that must have occurred some time after fossiization.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)