What a marvelous day! We saw some wild ponies and a few pronghorn. I’ll post some photos eventually.
We visited an Eocene locality today and found a few turtles (like whole turtles, though munched up) and a few mammal teeth and jaws.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll remember to take a photo or two with this phone so I can share.
Here’s the one photo I took today:
This is a photo of a red layer just below the ground surface. We had wondered if the red layer was the source of the fossils. Now we think it’s modern soil-formation processes.
What do you think?
Penny Higgins - Storyteller • Artist • Scientist 
The rocks in the red layer look a lot like the ones in the gray layer below. Could the red be something that seeped in from the surface?
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Yes. I think the red layer is recent and due to oxidation of iron in the layers just below the surface.
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Could the rocks be hematite? I know it comes in red and gray/black. I used to carry a piece of polished black hematite as a worry stone.
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It could be hematite, or another iron oxide, including goetite or magnetite. It’d be tough to tell the difference without some heavy-duty tests, and really it’s not worth doing. ‘Iron oxides’ tells us what we need to know about the formation environment…
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