A Colorado valley buried by volcanic ash, preserving over 1,700 species of insects and plants in paper-fine shale, plus the stumps of enormous redwoods turned to stone and standing where they grew. The detail on the insects is extraordinary, down to wing venation. LOOK ONLY inside the monument, though a couple of private quarries just outside the boundary run pay digs on the same beds.
Insects, leaves, giant petrified redwoods · Eocene, ~34 mya
This ground is protected. Photograph it, record it, leave it where it lies. On US federal land the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act 2009 makes collecting vertebrate fossils an offence, and penalties are real.
Other places on the map within a couple of hours.
