Images Of The Pyramid Formation Fossil Plants, Nevada

Middle Miocene (15.6 million years old)

Here is a view of the fossil locality--the entrenched white rocks in the foreground--dated radiometrically at 15.6 million years old; it occurs in diatomites (composed almost entirely of the single-celled aquatic plants called diatoms) in what geologists call the Pyramid Formation. Take a field trip to the Pyramid Formation fossil locality.

Here is a leaf from an extinct water oak (Quercus simulata), preserved as a classical fossil leaf impression on a piece of diatomite (composed almost entirely of microscopic singe-celled aquatic plants called diatoms) from the Middle Miocene Pyramid Formation. The specimen is 80 millimeters in actual length.

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