The Division of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Florida Museum has at least one fossil collecting session per year that uses volunteer assistance.
Our current large-scale excavation is at the Montbrook Site. The site is about a 45-minute drive south of Gainesville, near the town of Williston in Levy County.
Based on the faunal assemblage and preservation, the site is believed to be 5 to 5.5 million years old (latest Miocene – earliest Pliocene, Hemphillian North American Land Mammal Age) and an ancient river system relatively close to a coast.
Michelle Barboza modeling our end of the season gomphothere jaw
Chrissy Lonnegan excavating the turtle death layer.
Terry Tydings with partial deer antler.
Vertebrate Paleontology Curator, Jonathan Bloch, with a rhino toe.
Maya Ibison digging around an elephant relative pelvis.
Garrett Munger excavating a complete Trachemys turtle shell.
The Clark family with articulated elephant relative backbone and ribs.
Bill Buhi and Sebastian Jimenez ready to move a large plaster jacket containing fossils of an elephant relative.
Florida Museum Director, Doug Jones, digging at Montbrook during the GABI-RET Cohort Number 5, Dec. 2016.
Carol Sewell excavating her square at the dig site.
Victoria Arico’s fused carnivore toe.
Lee Williams with a duck coracoid. October 21st, 2016.
Aldo Rincon with a horse tooth, Oct 2016.
Ken Marks with a piece of Trachemys inflata carapace and a large fish vertebra
Cindy Lockner carefully working around alligator limbs
Vertebrate Paleontology Collections Manager, Richard Hulbert, adding glue to the fossils of the ‘elephant bone bed’.
Susan Harris with a llama tooth
Kathleen and Dan Hayman visiting the Montbrook site Fall 2018!
Issac Magallanes with a juvenile gomphothere tusk.