John Muir in the Petrified Forest: Part 2

Continuing the post on John Muir and his paleontological work in the Petrified Forest. Below are photos of a couple of the actual fossil vertebrate specimens that Muir collected in the Petrified Forest along with the tags included with the specimens. Muir gave the specimens to his friend John C. Merriam of the University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP). The upper tag is in Muir's own handwriting. The middle tag is Merriam's writing, whereas the locality and specimen numbers written on the middle tag are in Charles Camp's handwriting. The photos were taken by Randy Irmis and are courtesy of the UCMP.

Merriam's tag states that the specimens were all collected from the Second Forest (now the Crystal Forest); however, the osteoderm fragment below is from the aetosaur Typothorax, which does not occur at the stratigraphic level of the Crystal Forest but instead is found a bit higher in the section. Muir also visited the Northern (Black) Forest, which is higher stratigraphically and it is possible that the specimen is from there instead.

Below is a well preserved portion of a phytosaur jaw. This specimen probably is from the Crystal Forest.