Underground Ocean

This is a photo essay from a trip to Morocco in the summer of 2007 made possible by the Watson Fellowship grant. I met a man at the Tucson gem and mineral show selling fossils from the edge of the Sahara. I wanted to see the first step in the chain of buyers and sellers that brought pieces of Africa to the Arizona Desert. I stayed with a prospector for a few weeks, trying to understand what drove him to wander around looking for small bits of petrified animals. For most people, it's the tiny amounts of money. But for some out there, mysterious rocks are their only obsession. Click here for the slideshow, and then find the 'fullscreen' button at the top right to run it.