Monday, April 30, 2012

Fossil Butte National Monument, Wyoming

Scarlet and I made a quick trip to Bear Lake this last weekend. I didn't pull out my camera too much, but did take it on our short hike in Fossil Butte National Monument, Sunday morning. As for Fossil Butte, it was pretty fascinating. Didn't live up to National Monument expectations, but we still had a good time. The park has two trails, neither of which leads past any fossils. To find those, you have to know where to look, and be willing to walk off trail through the sagebrush. Fossil collecting is illegal, but the fossil hunt was fun and we saw probably 20 different fish fossils. 
 One of the many fish fossils we found in a recent rock slide. The rock here is in paper thin layers and is a very brittle limestone. A lot of the rock is so brittle, that just moving the rocks can fracture the 50 million year old skeletons.
 Another fossil with the upper limestone band of Fossil Butte sitting under the beautiful blue Wyoming sky. I tried getting a picture that would represent the park as a whole, but this is the only one I got before losing patience with the cold winds! I kinda like it.
 A closeup of the same fish from above. This is one of the best preserved fish fossils we found, and on the other side of the slab, was still the mummified decaying remains of other fish. Its hard to fathom the body of the animal is still present after 50 million years. 
 This is the cabin of David Haddenham. Haddenham was a popular fossil collector in the early 1900's at Fossil Butte. This cabin was constructed in 1918, and still has the frame of his old bed and parts of his handmade wood burning stove. Haddenham roamed the area for nearly half a century.
The grass and sage covered slope leading to Fossil Butte, which is in the background. If you look closely, you can see the limestone band mentioned earlier.

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