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.
Cindy Lockner carefully working around alligator limbs
Aldo Rincon with a horse tooth, Oct 2016.
Garrett Munger excavating a complete Trachemys turtle shell.
Victoria Arico’s fused carnivore toe.
Lee Williams with a duck coracoid. October 21st, 2016.
Maya Ibison digging around an elephant relative pelvis.
Bill Buhi and Sebastian Jimenez ready to move a large plaster jacket containing fossils of an elephant relative.
Kathleen and Dan Hayman visiting the Montbrook site Fall 2018!
Carol Sewell excavating her square at the dig site.
Terry Tydings with partial deer antler.
Vertebrate Paleontology Curator, Jonathan Bloch, with a rhino toe.
Susan Harris with a llama tooth
Chrissy Lonnegan excavating the turtle death layer.
Florida Museum Director, Doug Jones, digging at Montbrook during the GABI-RET Cohort Number 5, Dec. 2016.
Ken Marks with a piece of Trachemys inflata carapace and a large fish vertebra
Vertebrate Paleontology Collections Manager, Richard Hulbert, adding glue to the fossils of the ‘elephant bone bed’.
Issac Magallanes with a juvenile gomphothere tusk.
Michelle Barboza modeling our end of the season gomphothere jaw
The Clark family with articulated elephant relative backbone and ribs.