Geology, history, paleontology and horse fossils are discussed.

Chapter List

Virtual Tour

Hagerman Fossil Beds National monuments are home to fossils of equus simplicidens, the ancestor of the modern horse, and the area is known for its sage brush steppes and Oregon Trail history.

Nature and Science

Hagerman Fossil Beds contains fossils from the Pliocene Epic, especially the Hagerman horse, known as equus simplicidens.

History and Culture

The Snake River area and the Magic Valley are known for their agriculture.

Geology, history, paleontology and fossils are looked at.

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Virtual Tour

The John Day Fossil Beds National Monument shows mammalian fossils in the fossil beds found in its three units, Clarno, Painted Hills and Sheep Rock.

Nature and Science

The John Day Fossil Beds, located in a high desert ecosystem, were formed by volcanic action and contain fossil plants and animals.

History and Culture

The John Day Fossil Beds were originally home to the Paiute Indian tribe, but gold brought in miners to help the north during the Civil War, and later the 1862 Homestead Act brought in pioneers who raised sheep.

Geology, history, paleontology and fossils are examined.

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Fossil Butte National Monument contains Fossil Lake, part of the Green River formation, and it has many fish fossils as well as a sagebrush ecosystem, which is home to black tailed jack rabbits and pronghorn.

History and Culture

The history of Fossil Butte is the history of the Wild West, cattle country, cowboys, Shoshone Indian Tribe, whose most famous name Sacagawea, helped Lewis and Clark, and Mountain men like Jim Bridger, John Colter and finally, the coming of the Union Pacific Railroad.

Nature and Science

Fossil Butte contains Fossil Lake from the Eocene Epic, and it is, one of three lakes in the area with extensive fossils; the other two are Lake Gosiute and Lake Uinta.

Geology, tectonic plates and American history are discussed.

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Pinnacles National Monument, located in the Gabilan Coastal Mountains, is part of an ancient volcano and contains Talus Caves, and varied birdlife, including the California Condor.

History and Culture

Pinnacles, found in the Gabilan Mountains, has been home to Spanish settlers, Mexican Californios, American homesteaders, and was written about by the Nobel Prize winning author John Steinbeck, in his classic novel, East of Eden.

Nature and Science

Pinnacles, which has a chaparral ecosystem, has part of the San Andreas fault, which caused the famous San Francisco earthquake in 1906, volcano, and it was formed by the collision of the North American Plate, Pacific Plate and Farallon Plate.

Geology, volcanic action and lava as well as American history are discussed.

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Craters of the Moon National Monument discusses volcanism, with attention to cinder cones, spatter cones, and the different kinds of lava, known as pahoi hoi, ah ah.

History and Culture

Shoshone Indians, Oregon Trail and Goodales cut off are part of the history of Craters of the Moon.

Nature and Science

The other worldly landscape of Craters of the Moon, was caused by volcanic eruptions, located in what is known as the Great Rift, and by a hotspot, now located under Yellowstone National Park.

Geology and the history of the California gold rush are discussed.

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Devils Postpile National Monument examines the volcanic origins of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, also known as the High Sierras.

History and Culture

Devils Postpile is an area rich in history of Native Americans, the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill, the Gold rush and mining towns such as Bodie, California.

Nature and Science

Devils Postpile was formed by tectonic action and glaciers of the last four ice ages, revealing its beautiful hexagon columns.

Geology and American Indian History are discussed in this chapter.

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Lava Beds National Monument is about volcanoes and volcanic action and preserves part of the Medicine Lake Volcano, a shield volcano in the Cascade Range, as well as a few pictographs and petroglyphs.

History and Culture

California's Lava Beds are part of Western history's Indian Wars, particularly the Modoc War where Modoc Indians led by Captain Jack held off the American Army for 4 months.

Nature and Science

Lava Beds is about the formation of the Cascade Mountain Range by the Farallon Oceanic Plate and the Juan de Fuca Plate, and it is about Tule Lake, high desert ecosystem and the, Cascade ecosystem.

Biology and American history are discussed.

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Muir Woods National Monument is about the coastal redwoods and the evergreen sequoia, as well as the efforts of Gifford Pinchot, John Muir, President Teddy Roosevelt to preserve these trees.

History and Culture

The old growth redwood forest in Muir Woods is the story of four men - Gifford Pinchot, William Kent, Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir, founder of the preservationism movement and Yosemite National Park and the U.S. Park Service.

Nature and Science

The redwoods located in the coastal redwoods live in a Mediterranean climate and survive in part because of the almost daily coastal fog.

As a part of American history, Minidoka is dedicated to preserving the memory of internment camps that held Japanese Americans, who were internees during WWII, and held in camps that were set up by an executive order given by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Biology, geography and American history are discussed.

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Cabrillo National Monument is located in San Diego and preserves the history that started with the Portuguese explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, as well as the its biological diversity.

Nature and Science

Diverse intertidal ecosystems, tide pools, chaparral, chaparral ecosystem and scrub communities of plants are preserved at Cabrillo.

History and Culture

Father Junipero Serra came to San Diego in the Spanish Colony of California and began setting up missions along the el Camino Real; missions that were followed by presidios and haciendas founded by Spanish colonists and soldiers.

Biology and American history are discussed.

Chapter List

Virtual Tour

Located in the Siskiyou Mountains of Oregon, Oregon Caves National Monument, with its beautiful stalactites, stalagmites and calcite formations preserves America's only marble cave, as well as the distinctive architecture of the Oregon Caves Chateau.

History and Culture

Above ground, Oregon caves preserves the area's long history of logging and forestry, also known as sylviculture and the conservation of the Conservation Movement.

Nature and Science

Oregon Caves' old growth forests contain a remarkable biodiversity of trees and plants, including Port Orford Cedar and Douglas Fir.