Left to right: Paleobotanist Howard Schorn, retired Collections Manager Of Fossil Plants at the University California Museum Of Paleontology in Berkeley, and geologist Robinson Cecil examine outcrops at the Discovery Site (the locality where I first found fossil leaves in the Ione Basin, on July 21, 1991), Middle Eocene Ione Formation, western foothills of the Sierra Nevada, Amador County, California. Image taken on June 3, 2003.

After breakfast at Dennys restaurant in Jackson on June 3, 2003. Howard drove us to the Discovery Site, the specific locality where I had first found fossil leaves in the Ione Basin on July, 21, 1991. Here, we examined the fossil-bearing outcrops of the Middle Eocene Ione Formation--including an exposed bedding plane that contained a very nice fragment of a fossil fan palm frond. In addition to outcrops of the Ione Formation, Howard also wanted Robinson to observe the type locality (the geographic site where a geologic rock unit was first named and described in the scientific literature) of the overlying Lower Miocene Valley Springs Formation in the vicinity of Valley Springs, Calaveras County, California. And that's where we next headed.

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.