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Anza-Borrego Desert Paleontology Society

The legal way to look for fossils in Anza-Borrego: as a trained volunteer of the park's paleontology program

Who
Amateur volunteers of the Colorado Desert District paleontology program, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park
To join
Become a California State Parks volunteer, then complete the certification program
Certification
Free, every Friday from November to April, 160 hours; the 2026-27 class starts November 6, 2026
Commitment
At least 80 volunteer hours a year
Field surveys
About once a month, led by park staff
Where
Season opens at the Borrego Springs branch library, 2580 Country Club Road; lab at the Stout Research Center, 200 Palm Canyon Drive
Public lectures
Free, November to March
Email
anzaborregopaleo@gmail.com

Club with field trips for members

Based in Borrego Springs, California.

anzaborregopaleo.org ↗

Email:

Around here, the land is mostly private

Within 50 miles of Borrego Springs our maps show no open public land to prospect. That is exactly why a club matters here: clubs have the landowner permissions, the leases and the know-how.

Nearest open public land on our fossil and meteorite map: about 64 miles away.

See the nearest open land on the fossil and meteorite map →

Prospecting and collecting rules in California →

About Anza-Borrego Desert Paleontology Society

Anyone planning to go fossil hunting in Anza-Borrego should know the park's rule first: private collecting of rocks or fossils is prohibited in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. The Anza-Borrego Desert Paleontology Society is the way in. It is a group of enthusiastic amateurs, some of them year-round Borrego Springs residents and others snowbirds, who help preserve, protect and study the fossils in the park's rocks, remains of plants, animals and marine life laid down over the last 7 million years. Most of them have no formal training in this work, and the society says plainly that you do not need to know anything about paleontology, or any other science, to become a valued member.

About once a month, led by state park staff and the district paleontologist, members set out for a remote and little-visited corner of the park on a field survey. The work involves a moderate amount of hiking, some scrambling over hilltops and some strolling up gentle washes, and every fossil found is located with GPS, described and collected. Back in the laboratory the volunteers clean the fossils, treat them with preservatives, glue broken pieces back together and help identify them before they are catalogued into the park collection for future researchers. Some finds are barely visible, a few need machinery to collect, and most travel back in a backpack. Picks and brushes now share the work with GIS mapping, drone flights, photogrammetry, databases and 3D printing.

Membership starts with paperwork: you first become a California State Parks volunteer, then take the society's free certification program, 160 hours of geology and paleontology lectures, fossil curation and preparation workshops and field surveys, held every Friday from November through April. The 2026-27 class opens on November 6, 2026, at the Borrego Springs branch of the San Diego County Public Library, 2580 Country Club Road, with a welcome for new volunteers and the monthly meeting in the morning and, after lunch, a tour of the collections at the Stout Research Center at the park headquarters, 200 Palm Canyon Drive. In return, certified volunteers give at least 80 hours a year to the Colorado Desert District paleontology program. Some meetings can be followed on Zoom.

Volunteers have been part of the park's fossil work since 1974, when the first paleontology classes were taught in Borrego Springs. The Stout Paleontology Laboratory, paid for by a volunteer and her husband, was completed in 1982, and the Stout Research Center built around it was finished in 1998. On the last field trip of 1986 the group found a spot dense with bone that yielded the skull, tusk and remains of a southern mammoth; in 1988 the skull and tusk were airlifted by helicopter to the Stout laboratory.

People not ready for 160 hours can still meet the society: its free public guest lectures run from November to March, and at Borrego Days, held on October 17-18, 2026 at Christmas Circle, its booth at the end of the parade showed fossils and replicas and sold the book Fossil Treasures of the Anza-Borrego Desert. Anyone who comes across a fossil in the park is asked not to touch it, to mark the spot with a small pile of rocks, note the wash and the nearest landmarks and report it at the Visitor Center, so the park's paleontologists can record the find before anything is moved.

Other clubs and places nearby

Where to buy gear nearby

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