A backhoe operator, hired by paleobotanist Howard Schorn, expands the fossil trench at famous Lydodium Gulch, in the Middle Eocene Ione Formation, Ione Basin, western foothills of the Sierra Nevada, Amador County, California.Nevada--all in preparation for a joint field trip with student collecting crews from a Community College and a university on October 26 and 27, 2002. After but a few minutes of expert excavations, the operator had produced beaucoup big blocks of leaf-bearing shale for our students to spit apart. Image taken on October 25, 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.