Rock Hounds

So we got to visit my sister and she got out some of her personal collection of rocks and fossils, it was like a private museum with a knowledgable tour guide.

Some plant fossils...

A Trilobite! "A remarkable, hard-shelled, segmented creature that existed over 300 million years ago in the Earth's ancient seas. They went extinct before dinosaurs even came into existence." Read more here.

Ancient worm tracks...

A fossilized bone from the dinosaur era...

Pelecypods - a mollusk having two shells (like a clam)

Fossil Hunting with our own personal geologist

Here is E with my famous and fabulous geologist sister. How lucky are we that when she came to visit in April she had some time to take us out fossil hunting - almost in our own backyard! She had an she had an old fossil-finding map with a site not far down the road.



Our finds for the day, in the tertiary sandstone, included pelecypods, mollusks (the white shells that are visible, that aren't quite fossilized) and dark markings that were once organic matter like wood and plant fragments. So there are many reasons having a scientist sister is cool, one reason she gives you big words you can use on your blog. Thanks Nic.

Dino Museum

So after you dig up some fossils, what do you do? Take them to a museum of course! So after yesterday's dig, E created his own, complete with guided tours :)