Ochoco Mountains made of rocks from the Permian, Triassic, and Jurassic periods (300 to 200 million years old) that were transported by the Pacific Plate and accreted in the late Mesozoic era (about 100 million years ago) as part of a vast shallow sea, then slowly uplifted by volcanic eruptions during the Eocene epoch (50 to 37 million years ago) to form the Clarno Formation. From 37 to 17 million years ago, eruptions in the western Cascade Range spread ash across eastern Oregon, forming the John Day Formation. From 17 to 14 million years ago, major volcanic eruptions covered much of the
Eldon George as a sparrow or robin. In 1986, a scientific team that included Paul Olsen, discovered hundreds of thousands of fossils at Wasson Bluff, one of the biggest troves ever found. Fossil discoveries on the Fundy shoreline are especially significant because they date from 200 million years ago, the boundary between the Triassic and Jurassic geological periods, when about half of the Earth's living creatures suddenly became extinct giving rise to dinosaurs and the mammals that eventually succeeded them. Many of the fossils that date from that time remain hidden, buried under North American forests, farmland or cities. But, the Fundy