We’ve covered some major ground in the past two days! Broken up into teams of four, the team and I have taken major chunks out of our allotted public land, and as you can tell from this photo, it’s not easy going. Yesterday, part of the team met with a rancher whose land we cross in order to reach some of the federal land. Although this is not a mandatory practice, we try to meet and greet all of the local ranchers so they do not wonder why strangers are stomping around their land and disturbing their cows.  In our case, the rancher was eager to show us many of the areas where she has found fossils; she took us on a morning tour of her and the surrounding land.            

Yesterday, we found a partial turtle shell weathering out almost five feet up the side of a butte. Despite its inconvenient position, Walter Joyce, who happens to be a learned turtle specialist, suspects that it is a new species. We will attempt to excavate the intact remains sometime before our time here is up! Today we returned to more of the recommended sites and prospected all day long but found nothing as exciting. Here, Ariel Revan is seen in the distance on the side of a butte.