Over at http://inyo.coffeecup.com/site/barstowf ... ssils.html I've uploaded my new page, "Fossil Insects And Vertebrates On The Mojave Desert, California." Includes detailed text, images of fossils, and on-site photographs for virtual field trips to two world-famous localities in the middle Miocene Barstow Formation (19.3 to 13.4 million years old), within reasonable driving distance of Barstow.
One site yields fully three-dimensional silicified insects, spiders and fairy shrimp, among many other freshwater arthropods, that can be freed whole and intact from calcareous concretions. A second cyber
fossil-safari features a visit to what geologists and paleontologists call the type locality for the Bartovian Stage of the Miocene Epoch (16 to 12.5 million years ago), where an amazing diversity of mineralized mammalian remains occurs. It's the place with which all geologically time-equivalent vertebrate fossil-bearing rocks in North America are compared, contrasted and evaluated for their fossil remains.
Fossil Insects And Vertebrates On The Mojave Desert, California