Ray and Kirk thank their lovely wives Michelle Troll and Chase Deforest, who allowed a remarkable amount of unsupervised travel along the West Coast between 2008 and 2017. Funding for this travel was provided by a joint fellowship to Ray and Kirk by the Guggenheim Foundation in 2011. The text was improved and fact checked by Bobby Boessenecker, Will Clyde, and Mark Goodwin. Kirk thanks his mom Katie Jo, dad Dick, and sister Kirsten for making so many unscheduled stops at roadside outcrops between 1964 and 1978 and for being so supportive of a fairly massive in-house rock collection. Ray had help from Grace Freeman who did much of the digital coloring of his pen and ink drawings. Memo Juaregui did the color on the California map and Terry Pyles colorized the Washington State map. Frank and Jane Boyden and the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology provided two writing and drawing retreats as well as some amazing smoked black cod.
We thank Rebecca McEwen, Alison Auch, and Melanie Roth, along with Bob Baron, at Fulcrum Publishing for their great work and paleontological patience.
To gather the stories for this book, we traveled together on a dozen trips between 2008 and 2017. These trips varied in length from a weekend to three weeks. During that time, we both also made other trips alone or with other fossil friends. All told, we each spent more than 300 days exploring the West Coast for this project. Our goal was to see every fossil-bearing museum on the coast and we came pretty close to achieving it. Our journey has taken long enough that museums have opened or closed and beloved people have passed away. While this book aspired to be a snapshot, it turned into a decade.
There were a lot people who helped us access the wonderful world of West Coast fossils and we thank them all. These people told us stories, fed and watered us, put us up for the night, shared secret locality information, showed us their collections, loaned us boats, interpreted geology, referred us to their colleagues, and greatly deepened our understanding of this amazing shore. We are eternally grateful for their knowledge and generosity, and apologize to those who we inadvertently omitted. We list all of these people alphabetically by the state where we encountered them or their fossils:
Cecelia Auimopas, Josh Ballze, Larry Barnes, Tony Barnosky, Dennis Bartels, Lori Bettison-Varga, Bobby and Sarah Boessenecker, Sam Bowring, Ron Cauble, Jim Chatters, Luis Chiappe, Bill Clemens, David Cohen, Shelley Cox, Russ and Christa Crane, Lulis Cuevas, Ted Daeschler, Tom Deméré, Sara diAngelis, Bob Dundas, Mike Edward, Diane Erwin, Andy Farke, Harry Filkorn, Lori Fogarty, William Gilly, Mark Goodwin, Judy Gradwohl, John and Andy Gregg, Lindsey Groves, Mick Hager, Ashley Hall, John Harris, Jim Hekkers, Dick Hilton, Craig and Annie Holdren, Pat Holroyd, David Hopkins, Carrie Howard, Karl Hutterer, Martin Jefferson, Ryan Jefferson, Warren Johns, Tim King, Niranjala Kottachchi, Tom Lindgren, Jere Lipps, Don Lofgren, John Long, Cindy Looy, Milton Love, Jane Lubchenco, Richard Lynas, Joan Marason, Charles Marshall, Sam McLeod, Sarah Messnick, Ed Miller, Sarah Minor, Heather Moffatt, Paul Murphey, Helen Nuckolls, Randy Olsen, Kevin Padian, Adele Panofsky, Darryl Pettit, Jane Pisano, Don Prothero, Farah Rahbar, Charles “Chuck” Repenning, Karin Rice, Meredith Rivin, Scott, Toni, and Jade Sampson, Gabe Santos, Judy Scotchmoor, Eric Scott, Eugenie Scott, Susan Shillinglaw, Doug Shore, Dave Smith, Kathleen Springer, Mary Stecheson, J.D. and Margie Stewart, Kirk Stoddard, Brian Swartz, Gary Takeuchi, Bruce, Robin and Theo Tiffney, Trevor Valle, Jorge Velez-Juarbe, Xiaoming Wang, Joe Watkins, Regina Wetzer, Lisa White, William T. Wiley, Joe Willey, Jack Wolfe, and Mike Wracker.
Amy Atwater, Dave Bohaska, Tom Bones, Frank and Jane Boyden, Jennifer Cabin, David Craig and Kendra Mingo, Aaron Currier, Ed Davis, Regan Dunn, Nick Famoso, McKenzie Figuracion, Ted and Skyler Fremd, Kent and Lucy Gibson, Bill Hanshumaker, Jim and Jo Hockenhull, Samantha Hopkins, Alex Krupkin, Liz Lovelock, Steve Manchester, Herb Meyer, Jeff Myers, John Orcutt, Bill Orr, Nick Pyenson, Clayton Ray, Greg Retallack, Bob Rose, Josh X. Samuels, Silas Stardance, Kelsey Stilson, Bill Sullivan, Bruce Thiel, and Ed Vines.
Brian Atwater, Ross Berglund, Ian, Jennifer, and Gavia Boyden, Bill Brandt, Cathy and Clementine Brown, Bill Buchanan, Betsu Carlson, Chris Chase, Bill Curtsinger, Jane Cushing, Tad and Rick Dillhoff, Ron Eng, Caroline Gibson, Jim Goedert, Tom, Caroline, and Beatrice Grauman, Harold Hanson, Charlie, Lucy, Harper, and Lark Hanson, Clare Manis Hatler, Estella Leopold, Stan Mallory, David Montgomery, George Mustoe, Jack Nesbit, Liz Nesbit, James Orr, Brandon Peecook, Phil Peterson, Ted Pietsch, Kitty Reed, Bill Reid, Bill and Dee Rose, Christian Sidor, David Starr, Julie Stein, Mike and Jan Sternberg, Caroline Stromberg, Kathy Troost, Peter Ward, Wes Wehr, Andrew Whiteman, Greg Wilson, Bev Witte, and Nick Zentner.
Bruce Archibald, Graham and Tina Beard, Deborah Griffiths, Trish Guiguet, Eric Tamm, Heather Trask, Mike Trask, Pat Trask, John Valliant, Jan Vriesen, and Grant Zazula.
Ketch Bachelor, Jim Baichtal, Bob Banghart, Robert Blodgett, Angela Coleman, Laura Carsten Conner, Diane Converse, Aron Crowell, Julie Decker, Pat, Lisa, and Maggie Druckenmiller, Tom Dutro, Greg Erickson, Bud Fay, Tony Fiorillo, Bill Fitzhugh, Pieter Folkens, Sarah Fowell, John, Jan and Finn Fraley, Roland Gangloff, Darrell Gardner, Richard Glenn, Dale and MaryLee Guthrie, Mareca Guthrie, Barth and Jackie and Hannah Hamberg, Bill Hanson and Kate Troll, Pete Hanson, Mary-Alice Henry, Whit and Woodson Hicks, Anna Hoover, Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi, Nathan Jackson, Lou Jacobs, Sue Karl, Deb Klein, Janet Klein, Igor Krupnik, Piers Leigh, Seth Maiers, Kevin May, Corky McCorkle, Mike McCrary, Hans Nelson, Mary Nerini, Judy Olsen, Peter Oxley, Michael Polcyn, Chip Porter, Eugene Primaky, Miyun Reid, George, Kai, and Sylas Reising, Nancy Ricketts, AlexAnna Salmon, Forrest Sheperd, Linda Slaght, Connie Soja, Gary Staab, Mat Stimpson, John and Jan Straley, David Sunderlin, Gary Thompson, Dave Tomeo, Meade Treadwell, Tim Troll, Donald Varnell, Betsy and Davis Webb, and Scott Widness.
Created in collaboration with shapeoflife.org
Special thanks to Grace Freeman, who colorized many of Ray’s works of art in this book.
To see more of Grace’s work, visit gracemakesart.com.