| Geology field trip participants hike to exposures of the Lower Mississippian Tin Mountain Limestone in the Funeral Mountains, Inyo County, California. The area lies on public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and is open to hobby collecting of reasonable amounts of common invertebrate fossils. The Tin Mountain Limestone begins here directly above that narrow inclined reddish-brown band just below the peak; that is the upper part of the Middle to Upper Devonian Lost Burro Formation, and thus everything below that point belongs to the Lost Burro Formation. Tin Mountain Limestone forms the very peak here in view and can be followed all the way down the right slope to the hill directly above the head of the field trip participant seen at farthest right of photograph. That narrow band of massive dark blue limestone observed overlying the Tin Mountain Limestone, just below the peak and forming the ridgeline along the right side, is the younger Mississippian Perdido Formation--a narrow "sliver" of which also caps the Tin Mountain limestone at the hill above head of the field trip participant nearest right edge of picture. Image courtesy Dave Smith. |