The foot-long geology rock hammer lends perspective to a distinctive and typical outcropping of the Middle Eocene Ione Formation, Ione Basin. Here is preserved a section dominated by crinkly to blocky-weathering reddish-brown sandstones and grayish mudstones. The exposure is singularly unfossilierous, unfortunately, but such a rock lithology is characteristic of many sections in the Ione Formation, in the vicinity of The Discovery site--so-named because it was the place where I first found fossil plants in the Ione Basin back on July 21, 1991. 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.