Fossils in the Inyo Mountains

This is a great location in Inyo County for possible Ediacaran Period fossils, found between Cowhorn Valley and Little Cowhorn Valley. This is a new Period ratified in 2004...the first to be created in over 120 years.  The period ran for 93 million years ending 542 million years ago.  These are soft bodied animals that lived just before the great Cambrian Explosion, then they all apparently went extinct...
 



Ediacaran Worm fossils.

 

Ediacaran worms that have been exposed showing a perpendicular cut across their body (the round images)





More Ediacaran worms.

Below are from Google Images and represent additional fossils we found...



Ediacaran fossil - Cowhorn Ridge



Ediacaran fossil - Cowhorn Ridge



Ediacaran fossil - Cowhorn Ridge

Additional information on the Ediacaran Period, go to Wikipedia.

Lava Bombs

Lava bombs are cool, check this out...

This is about 12" long and was formed from high to moderately fluid magma erupting from a cinder cone, which are piles of cinders formed from gaseous magma that generally flies into little pieces and piles up along the edge forming a cone.  Larger blobs of magma are thrown high into the air by the explosive nature of the eruption; the molten magma forms into this aerodynamic shape, solidifies, and falls to the rim of the volcano. This example is among a group called Spindle, fusiform, or almond/rotational bombs.  More information can be found here.

Great examples have been found here on Red Mountain south of Crater Mountain south of Big Pine, CA...

 

We recently took some friend to the cone and ended up finding a huge bomb imbedded in the consolidated cinders on the SW slope...

 



 On the north side are some incredible collections of lichen set on a canvas of red.  I don't think I have ever seen so many colors of lichen together at one spot...

 

The Eastern Sierra is home to textbook examples of volcanism.  Climbing these cones offers incredible vistas of the Sierra Nevada and the Owens Valley.