Backpackers, during your hikes along the Tonto Trail, have you ever seen physical evidence of these early Trilobite Exhibits?

GRCA # 11516
Dolichometopus productus

GRCA # 11540
Dolichometopus productus

The exhibit consisted of a rock masonry case built around the exposed fossil trilobites, with a glass cover over the exhibit. No other protection for the exhibit was provided and rocks from the hillside above roll down onto the glass, moisture inside the case collects on the glass and on the fossils, and water from the outside seeps through the masonry of the exhibit case. From constant action of moisture and falling rock, the exhibit has become ruined and is no longer useful for its intended purpose.

It was believed desirable to attempt again to make a trailside exhibit at this place, designing a better protective structure with explanatory data, and using C.C.C. labor. This required the preparation of working drawings for the structure in order to have the project approved. All this preliminary work had to be done, yet no excavation had been carried on to expose the fossils in place. We are not even sure we will find such fossils, nor do we know the size of the "fossil pier" which the structure is to protect.

No excavation of the fossils can be undertaken until the job is approved, nor is it desirable to do so, for if fossils were uncovered there would be no safe way to protect them from disintegration until properly protected. These fossils are located in the friable Bright Angel Shale, and exposure to sunlight, temperature changes, snow and rain would soon destroy them.

Upon approval of the project, and when time and weather thereafter permit, the C.C.C. crew under their foreman will be sent down to Indian Gardens and under the guidance of one of the naturalists will proceed to excavate and attempt to locate fossils close by the original exposure.

Louis Schellbach
Acting Park Naturalist
Grand Canyon National Park