on the desert floor

Prehistoric clamshells on the desert floor in Utah. Who knew?
At first I thought I was standing on loose rock — most of the shells were less than an inch in diameter and all were gray in color. On closer inspection, I started to see the distinctive shapes and striation of the shells. There were hundreds of them.

When I got there we were completely in shadow. As the sun started to illuminate the top of the hill, the shells became more obvious. I grabbed a couple of close up images of the shells emerging from the shadow, and also grabbed a few ancient shells as souvenirs.