 Hello and welcome to the Rugged Rocking. Today I'm at the top of Douglas Pass here in Grand Junction. So here I drove all the way on the dirt road that gets out here to the radar dump. Now this is private so don't go here and there was a sign on the fence back here. I'm wondering if it's bigger than this so just because I don't want to be on the you know the the government's private property or whatever I'm going to go back down to where the fence was down here and look outside of it just so I'm being safe but I think it's only this area that's off limits anyway but we're up here looking for fossils we're looking for leaf fossils you know plant related things like that and insects so that's really cool I've never actually looked for insect fossils I'm excited to give this a try. Everything I've read kind of indicated that if you keep coming further on this road sorry about that wind if you keep coming further on this road there's also a road that goes up over there that this area these layers that seem to have the better stuff and yeah sorry about that wind. Anyway okay well let's get down there oh and here's GPS to the spot that I'm going to be digging down there so there you go okay let's get out and see what we can find. Okay came back down the road that's that's where the gate starts so yeah I really think the the the property you're supposed to stay off is up there and that this is just to warn but just in case it is I'm going to stay outside of it and this looks like some good outcrop right here I already put some tools up there because I already started seeing some like carbon impressions in some of them that look like maybe like fronds or something like see right there I'm not sure what those are they look like those look like little iron concretions but I don't know for sure they could be insect or plant related I don't know this is all new to me we are going to see what we can find okay I'll bring you in when I find something that looks like something and I'm just gonna start like busting up the layers I'll take and just kind of start breaking apart things that look suspect and do a lot of just see what's on loose on the surface that's looking like something right there oh yeah that's definitely something you can see like fibers in that that's definitely plant-based and some other little things on it I really don't know my fossils so this is going to be one where it's just like that's cool that's cool oh this all right that does look like a leaf to a certain type of plant there's the other side of it okay all right starting to see some stuff what's this looks like a branch small twig a twig cool all right let's keep looking found what looks like a decent little leaf fossil work on my web it's a little dirty I'll have to get it washed off later cool okay something so I moved a bit further down the road from the car I jumped up and look there's an old road here and that looks really promising let's go up this little slope well I just came up this and as I came up look at that this is where people have been digging this must be the good spot where they keep finding stuff cool something I did bring with me as I brought a screwdriver hoping that that would help separate the layers but I also have my bigger chisel and hammer in case some of these layers are a little hard looks like some of them are pretty hard so I'm guessing this is where they were finding good stuff I don't know but the evidence is there that they've been digging this so why don't we give it a try maybe I'll bust up some of this stuff they didn't finish busting up we'll see don't you look at that that popped off at some point in time that is a nice leaf impression right there that'll be a keeper also a bit of a leaf right there broken a little bit of another leaf right there I think it looks like a leaf cool good start all right I'm gonna start a little pile right here so we got that nice one and then I found those other two I kind of showed and then we've got this one right here nice little leaf there so I think I'll just switch all the stuff on the surface first grab anything that's interesting bring it up there and then I'll start digging impression of something there probably a piece of a leaf or a palm frone or something right out of there I grabbed this rock split it and look at that there's a cool little leaf in it yeah that's pretty cool nice so I found this nice large piece to try and split so you see how there's a crack there so how you want to split it is you take and you just slowly work it so you take and they give a few taps there and then a few taps there and just keep working back and forth along it to try and keep the split going all the way through because otherwise it'll tend to just break a small piece off so we're gonna give that a shot and see how we do okay it looks like it's ready to come off so I wanted to film this while I slowly pry it oh and it shattered now that happens there was a little bit of a leaf right there anything else it doesn't look like there's anything else but I'm gonna continue to try cracking that open maybe the second time will be the lucky one okay I got it split and do we have anything in it let's see roots oh nothing okay we'll keep trying so I've been breaking for a while not finding much a few little things got this leaf that was just kind of a partial leaf then I just broke this one up and that's cool looks a little bit like a maple leaf kind of cool yeah that's a good one we'll put that up on the pile of things that I've found so far that are interesting right there so yeah so far the best is that that one and then that one the others are just kind of okay well that's decent just broke this one up and that's an interesting little leaf it's got a different shape to it so I was digging there and decided to start walking around and there are digs all over I'm trying to use the trees a wind block but yeah there's pit stug all over here so I'm going to go over this way a bit and just see if there's more and if this is the layer then technically you should go on the hill over there and the mountains over there should continue the layer there should be lots of fossils everywhere all right let's get checking over this way so I started digging out this spot there was a bunch of big loose ones that I could pull out and I'm going to try and get that big one out and once I get everything out I'm going to start busting through them I've been checking the sides of them and I haven't seen anything yet who knows okay I got it out nice big slab that little bit came off already we got a little leaf there so now I'm going to take all this stuff I pulled out I'm going to slowly just start breaking into it and see if we got anything cool that's already decent so I've actually been breaking for a while and I've mostly just been getting little teeny bits of things but I did just get that which I believe is a nice long like stick or big long leaf from like a palm front type thing I don't know but it's big and long okay this is really cool it's probably going to be the find of the day if I don't find an insect so I went over that way and grabbed a few rocks to start breaking them and look what came out so I didn't find anything yet because I wanted to try and give as much as I could to kind of show you guys look at that leaf so I'm going to take that home and try and piece it back together as best I can but yeah that's pretty cool that's fun this little leaf just sitting right about there yeah look at that that's a good leaf so I wasn't actually expecting to get out of anything anything out of the rock I was breaking and look at all that little stuff in there what's really intriguing is that right there huh that's some pretty cool looking stuff yeah a bunch of broken like pieces but that one just is really interesting and that's it for this trip some pretty good stuff this is an interesting area and there's lots of stuff up there and who knows what else is out on these hills exciting and hopefully I can get that leaf back together that big one maybe I'll use some epoxy or something I don't know anyway until next time remember there is treasure everywhere