American Fossils is a fossil digging quarry located in Southwestern Wyoming. It is the only fossil digging site that allows visitors to take home any fossils found. Other than offering fossil digging, visitors can also purchase fossils from the quarry site if interested. American Fossils offers different fossil digging package, such as 2 hours, 4 hours, or 8 hours session. It also offer private group session. This is quite a well known place for people traveling from Utah to Wyoming since it is just on the way.
We drove to American Fossils from Jacksons early in the morning. It took us 4 hours to get there. While we were driving to there on the highway, we saw a pronghorn standing on the side of the highway and waiting for us to drive by, then it crossed the road. We were surprised by how smart it was.
American Fossils is near the town of Kemmerer. We had to go off road for the last part of the drive. The road was in semi-good condition with mid sized gravel rocks. The last part right before the quarry was a bit sketchy. It was a steep grade going downwards. We had to go extremely slow here.
We signed up for a 4 hours session. The owner asked us to sign waivers and showed us the tools. She gave us a hammer and a chisel, then she showed us that we need to chisel along the layer so that the rock can be split beautifully.
In the begging we were having difficulty finding fossils. However, we were getting a hang of it and started to find fossils. Most of the fossils we found were fish and some fish poops. If the rock is not split perfectly, part of the fossil could still be in the rock. Then the fossil does not look good anymore. We split one of the rock and the fossil appeared on both sides of the rock. This was the best piece of fossil we found.
After 2 hours, we were already quite tired from fossil digging under the glaring sun and called it a day. We found about 10 good fossils and were quite happy about it. One nice lady gave us bubble wrap to wrap the fossils so that they don't get damaged in the car.
Overall, this was a great fossil digging experience. We definitely highly recommend to visit this place to experience fossil digging.
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