While I was in Arizona, I took my brother Jim out fossil collecting north of town.
The badlands north of Joseph City are part of the Chinle Formation (Triassic in age). The Chinle includes abundant deposits of petrified wood and some fossilized vertebrate remains -most of what I've seen are phytosaur.
It also includes Paleozoic chert clasts that contain fossils: bryozoans, brachiopods, and crinoids.
It's not uncommon to find evaporite mineral deposits in the region as well, but these are most likely quaternary deposits.
Sample is obliterated into powder using a tungsten carbide crusher.
Powdered sample is pressed into pellets for trace element analysis using x-ray fluorescence (XRF).
Powdered sample is mixed with flux and other elements to be heated and fused into glass discs for major element analysis using x-ray fluorescence (XRF).
