Sign about the Mascall Formation at Mascall Formation Overlook.
Marker Name: An Expanding Plain
Marker Text: You are standing on ashy deposits called the Mascall Formation, part of a story fifteen to twelve million years old.
As the climate brought cooler, drier air, the remains of expansive hardwood forests continued to give way to plains of fertile grasslands - an evolving savannah. This savannah was drummed with the hooves of camels, horses, and antelope. Falconids pierced the sky. Originating from a distant continent, early elephants lumbered upon this landscape for the first time. Carnivores - huge bear-dogs, catlike sabertooths, and dogs - hunted the growing herds of grass-eaters and dwindling number of forest-dwellers.
As this drama of life played out, periodic volcanic ash-falls from the west and east dusted and layered the land. Entombed were the remains of plants and animals, preserved for the future as fossils.
Though they lived in the distant past, Mascall Formation fossils seem very familiar when compared to life today. They are more familiar than the John Day country plants and animals tens-of-millions of years older, earlier in the age of Mammals.
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