Our backhoe operator scoops up great quantities of fossiliferous, plant-bearing shale at Lygodium Gulch, Middle Eocene Ione Formation, western foothills of the Sierra Nevada, Ione Basin, Amador County, California. After but a few minutes of his "attack" on our fossil locality, the skilled backhoe operator had already made a sizable trench, also spewing loads of easily split fossiliferous shales for paleobotanist Howard Schorn and me to split. Image was snapped on July 30, 2002.

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.