There's a fun place in the middle of nowhere in western Utah called U-Dig Fossils. It's in the Wheeler Formation, a dark blue-grey slate that formed roughly 500 million years ago in the Cambrian, and is full of trilobites. You pay an admission fee and are supplied with a rock hammer and a big plastic bucket, and an employee shows you how to choose likely rocks and split them along the layers. It's crazy hot in July, so make sure to take sunblock and water.
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| The whole family can participate. |
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| Asaphiscus wheeleri, a trilobite |
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| Elrathia kingii, another trilobite species |
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| Margaretia dorus, a seaweed-type algae. This algae was happily photosynthesizing a half a billion years ago, making oxygen for every land animal that ever evolved, from dinosaurs to mammoths to humans. |
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| Asaphiscus wheeleri |
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