Fossil sites in California

The Miocene marine deposits around Bakersfield and Coalinga produce the state's most accessible vertebrate fossils — shark teeth, whale bones, and fish material from former shallow seas that covered the San Joaquin Valley. Shark Tooth Hill near Bakersfield is the most concentrated Miocene shark-tooth site in California, operated as a supervised dig by the Buena Vista Museum of Natural History.

La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles is the only site in this guide where active excavation is ongoing and visible to the public. The Page Museum's Project 23 continues to recover Pleistocene specimens from asphalt deposits beneath the parking lot adjacent to the main pits. Summer excavation seasons allow visitors to watch paleontologists working at the site.

Coastal sites — Capitola Beach near Santa Cruz, Bolinas Lagoon in Marin County — offer self-guided collecting from Miocene marine deposits, primarily shark teeth and fish vertebrae in wave-cut platforms. No permits are required at these sites; the California BLM casual-use rules apply to surface collection of common fossils.