Saturday, July 11, 2009

Fossil digging

Emily has developed a love for rocks. My dad one time mailed her some rocks to add to her collection and they got lost in the mail... the envelope opened and its contents where empty except for the letter he sent.

My dad was talking to a friend of his in WA about Emily and her love for rocks... he is an "amiture" is what he calls himself but he has fossils or rocks (I can't remember which, or maybe it is both) on display in national museums. He said there was a place nearby that you can dig your own fossils. Emily was so excited about it and was wanting to go do it. Finally it was all planned out and they were off to dig some fossils.

Unfortunately, he hadn't been there in a little while and everything was all grown up so he couldn't find the place he was looking for. It was suppose to be like a mile hike to the location, but they didn't ever find the right place.

This rockhound, he brought Emily a box of all different kinds of rocks, with labels of what they are and where they came from. She thought that was pretty cool. Then when they couldn't find the fossil place, he went home and brought a big rock that had over 100 fossils in it he figured. He also brought a egg carton of lots of other little fossils he had already dug up for Emily to keep. She was SO excited.

These ones are from what is called the "Lincoln Creek Formation" and then the big rock he brought was from the Astoria Formation. I don't know much about it all, but I am guessing that since Emily is pretty interested in it, I maybe learning more about it too.


These were said to be like 13-17 million years old. The joke then was that they are a little older than Emily's grandpa (my dad).

Here Emily is digging away at the rock getting things out of it.

You can see the seashells sticking out of the rock all over.

Here is one that she found.


My dad built her a little wooden box with dividers for her to put all her rocks in. I think he is possibly planning on making more boxes for her too since she now has too many to fit in the first box.
How I will get all this home, I am not real sure.

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