Once upon a time in México

Sorting through my files as I prepare for the upcoming field season, I came across my notes for our two-week field trip to México in March 2008.

[quiet Saturday morning in front of the catedral in downtown Aguascalientes]

Xiaoming and I flew to Aguascalientes to meet our collaborator, Dr. Oscar Carranza of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

[the small but mobile field crew in Zacatecas]

For two weeks, we prospected around southern Zacatecas, discovering lacustrine and fluvial deposits containing fossils of Hemphillian age.

[Oscar and Jack jacketing a gomphothere tusk at the Aposco Ranch locality]

[a classic photo of Xiaoming standing next to a larger gomphothere tusk]

The excellent weather and muy delicioso food made the beautiful central plateau of México an unforgettable place to work. Our discoveries included fossil horses, pronghorns, borophagine canids, gomphothere elephants, and a single sloth wrist bone.

[a fossilized horse toe bone]

[two of the many stone tools we saw around rocky outcrops]

Viva la México!