Rock hoodoos at Clarno Unit

The Clarno Unit is on Route 218 about a dozen miles west of the town of Fossil, Oregon. The small park unit incorporates bluffs of volcanic tuff (ash beds) and basalt flows in the lower John Day Formation. The beds overlie tuffaceous sediments rich in fossil plant materials (including the Clarno Nut Beds) as well as fish, mammals, and other vertebrate fauna, and ichnofauna (traces in sediment left by living organisms including such features as crayfish burrows, foot prints, root traces, and other invertebrate tracks and traces) (Fremd and others, 1994; Bestland and others, 1999; Bestland and others, 2002).