Fossil Butte National Monument — Lincoln, Wyoming, United States
Lincoln, Wyoming, United States NPS photo, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain (US)

Locality · No collecting (NPS)

Fossil Butte National Monument

Lincoln, Wyoming, United States

Fossil Butte National Monument protects the type area of the Fossil Butte Member of the Green River Formation west of Kemmerer, Wyoming, the richest Eocene fish deposit on Earth. It is a place to see how the plates are found and prepared, not to collect; the same layers are quarried commercially on adjacent private and state land. The visitor centre's wall of fish is the best free education in Green River paleontology.

CountryUnited States
State / provinceWyoming
CountyLincoln
Land manager / statusNational Park Service
AccessPublic; visitor centre and trails open year-round
FormationsGreen River Formation
What is foundKnightia, Diplomystus, Priscacara, Mioplosus, palm fronds
Coordinates (public site)41.86, -110.77

Rules

All collecting is prohibited within the monument, including loose surface material; violations are federal offences. The monument offers a summer research-quarry programme where visitors watch preparators. Buy Green River fish from the private quarries near Kemmerer instead.

Source: https://www.nps.gov/fobu/ (checked 2026-09-16).

Collecting rules

Elsewhere

Cite this article

Stratum Study. "Fossil Butte National Monument" (Locality). Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-19. https://stratum.black/study/localities/fossil-butte-national-monument. Accessed 2026-09-20.

@misc{stratum-fossil-butte-national-monument,
  title        = {Fossil Butte National Monument},
  author       = {{Stratum Study}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/study/localities/fossil-butte-national-monument}},
  year         = {2026},
  note         = {Locality article, Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-19; sources: stratum, commons. Accessed 2026-09-20.}
}

Citations carry the pack version and the article's as-of date so they resolve to the same text later. The facts themselves belong to the sources listed below; cite those for the science.

Sources for this article: Stratum editorial (Stratum editorial);Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-4.0). As of 2026-09-19; Study pack 2026.09. Data reproduced under the licences shown; text in Stratum's own words unless a section names its source.

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