Field Trip To Ione Basin--March 11, 2004

Western Foothills Of The Sierra Nevada

Amador County, California

Reddish backpack just below center of picture gives perspective to a nice outcrop of reddish-brown and grayish-white clays in the Middle Eocene Ione Formation, Ione Basin, observed in the neighborhood of The Discovery site--so-named because that's the specific locality where I first found fossil plants in the Ione Basin back on July 21, 1991. This particular outcrop is unfossiliferous, but demonstrates to great advantage the clay-rich properties of the Ione Formation. Elsewhere in the Ione Basin, several beds in the Ione Formation are mined for their commercial-grade quantities of kaolinite clay. Image taken on March 11, 2004.

Please note: All fossil localities in the Ione Formation of Amador County, California, presently occur on private property; explicit permission from the land owners must be secured before collecting fossils there.

Continue With March 11, 2004, Field Trip To The Ione Basin

Return To Fossil Plants Of The Ione Basin, California