The Clarkia fossil beds, locally called the Fossil Bowl, are a Miocene lagerstatte near Clarkia in Shoshone County, Idaho, part of the Latah Formation and dated to roughly 15 million years old. The beds formed when a drainage basin was dammed by flood basalts of the Columbia River Plateau, creating a narrow, deep lake whose cold, anoxic water and rapid sedimentation produced exceptional fossil preservation in a tectonically stable basin. The site is best known for fossil leaves, some retaining their autumn coloration before oxidizing, indicating a paleoclimate much warmer and wetter than today's, comparable to southern Florida; claims of recovered ancient DNA from the leaves remain disputed, with some researchers attributing the results to bacterial contamination rather than genuine Miocene genetic material.
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Clarkia fossil beds (Wikipedia)
In Discipline: Stratigraphy, Lead paragraph
The Clarkia fossil beds (also known locally as the Fossil Bowl) is a Miocene Latah Formation lagerstätte near Clarkia, Idaho.
In Group: Cenozoic and Ice Age Fossil Sites, Lead sentence
The Clarkia fossil beds (also known locally as the Fossil Bowl) is a Miocene Latah Formation lagerstätte near Clarkia, Idaho.
Caused By: Volcanism, Lead sentence
The fossil beds were laid down in a lake roughly 15-million-years ago, when a drainage basin was dammed by the flood basalts of the Columbia River Plateau.
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