This project involved installation of 12,000 feet of water mains and sewer mains, as well as laterals, manholes, and other associated features in the mid-city area of San Diego. Trenching exposed Pleistocene marine terrace deposits of the Lindavista Formation and Pliocene to Pleistocene shallow marine deposits of the San Diego Formation. A small assemblage of warm water marine invertebrate fossils was recovered from the San Diego Formation, as well as a cervical vertebra of an unidentified baleen whale, and a partial dentary of a rorqual.
This project involved construction of a 250-megawatt photovoltaic solar power plant in the Carrizo Plain area. Excavations monitored included mass grading of array pads and access roads, augering for motor pier and tie line pole foundations, trenching for underground lines, and other miscellaneous work. Fossils were discovered in Pleistocene-age deposits of the Paso Robles Formation, and consisted of ostracod carapaces, bony fish teeth, isolated teeth and skeletal elements of terrestrial lizards, birds, and small mammals; vertebrae and ribs of a horse (Equus sp.); and a partial dentary of a large camel (Camelops sp.).
This project involved improvements and upgrades to the existing Imperial Valley Substation in Imperial County, California. Trenching, augering, and grading at the substation revealed a sequence of lake deposits representing the late Pleistocene to early Holocene Lake Cahuilla, and underlying Pleistocene Brawley Formation. Fossils recovered from both geologic rock units include freshwater ostracods, snails, oysters, and bony fish.
This mitigation program took the form of a pre-construction field investigation implemented prior to a geophysical survey of an oil and gas field in western Kern County. The geophysical survey will involve drilling hundreds of source points and pioneering of access roads. During the field investigation, Museum paleontologists visited all sites to be disturbed by earthwork, and when fossils were discovered, either collected a representative sample or repositioned the source point to avoid paleontological resources. The field investigation resulted in the discovery of 43 new fossil localities in strata of the Pliocene-age marine Etchegoin Formation, Pliocene-Pleistocene-age marine to fluvial San Joaquin Formation, and Pleistocene-age lacustrine to fluvial Tulare Formation. These localities yielded more than 2,500 fossil specimens of marine invertebrates (e.g., corals, clams, snails, scallops, oysters, barnacles, crabs, and sand dollars), marine vertebrates (e.g., sharks, rays, bony fish, turtle, fur seal, dolphin, and baleen whale), freshwater invertebrates and vertebrates (e.g., mussel, snail, and bony fish), terrestrial vertebrates (e.g., birds, camel, horse, gomphothere, and mastodon), and terrestrial plants.