I was lucky enough to examine this large specimen of fossil wood that I was told came from the hills of San Leandro.
People have told me about and showed me pieces of fossil wood from the East Bay hills before. I’m no expert on the subject, and I haven’t done a lot of fossil hunting in Oakland. But we have young terrestrial rocks around here in addition to the abundant marine rocks—primarily the Orinda Formation, of Miocene age. I assume this came from there.
People have told me about fossil wood in Wildcat Canyon, but that’s regional park land where collecting is forbidden. This specimen, I was told, was from EBMUD land, where collecting is not expressly forbidden, although I assume that vertebrate fossils (animal bones) are protected. I have purchased an EBMUD permit and have been looking forward to using it for responsible geologizing.
22 March 2013 at 9:31 pm
The watershed land at Las Trampas accessible from Crow Canyon is spectacular , and worth a trip.
24 March 2013 at 11:13 am
It is. I visited Las Trampas and wrote about it for KQED back in January.