A Passion for Fossils
Text and Photography by Dominique Braud
When Adam Lindgren greeted me with a handshake at the door of his Nisswa studio, I was struck by the unusual turtle skeleton tattooed on his tanned forearm. As he turned around to show me in, a large coiled snake skeleton tattooed on his right calf caught my attention. Cool, I thought, admiring the tattoo artist’s superb craftsmanship, each tiny vertebrae, and bone of the reptiles reproduced in exquisite details. But what I assumed was simply the trendy artistic expression of a twenty-three-year-old carried a deeper meaning.
I had driven up from the Twin Cities to Nisswa to interview Lindgren, owner of Ancient Lake Fossil Company, about his unique business as a fossil collector and dealer. A bit of a fossil amateur myself, I was anxious to find out what treasures were displayed in his studio. To tease me, he pointed out a few of the pieces I was to photograph later in the afternoon, his voice filled with passion as he described how he found each fossil. Displayed on the walls and lit with tiny floodlights shining from the ceiling like so many priceless Renoirs or Monets were nature’s own works of art, crafted over millions of years in the fossil-rich sediment layers of Wyoming’s Green River Formation. Clusters of Knightia, a small relative of the herring and less common Phaerodus, related to piranhas, hung side by side with rarer species like a paddlefish, a mooneye, stingrays, or a tiny crayfish—all frozen in death eons ago and reborn through Lindgren’s efforts—enriching modern science or simply filling us with wonder.
One of three sons of divorced parents, Adam Lindgren grew up with his mom and two older brothers in Brainerd, where he graduated from high school in 2004. He attended Santa Monica Junior College in California, studying geology, anthropology, archeology, and photography. His summers were often spent working for his dad, Thomas Lindgren, a well-respected fossil expert based in Los Angeles. Lindgren also joined his older brothers excavating fossils in Wyoming and developed his specimen-preparation skills in a professional lab in southern California.
The Green River Formation (Adam leases ranch land in the southwestern Wyoming area) is world famous for the quality of its fossil specimens. An ancient freshwater lake system that thrived some forty-eight to fifty-five million years ago during the Eocene period (as a frame of reference, dinosaurs became extinct sixty-five million years ago), it is now a gold mine for fossil collectors. Concealed in its many layers of compressed sediments are numerous species of fish, freshwater stingrays, alligators, crocodiles, snakes, turtles, birds, insects, bats, and other small mammals.
When Lindgren was seventeen—working for his brother, David, at the Green River Formation—he found a beautifully preserved turtle fossil. It is the same turtle tattooed on his forearm. The fossil has since been sold to the Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis, Wyoming.
Four years later, his snake discovery earned him instant recognition among serious fossil collectors. While working full time for his dad in July 2007, Adam made fossil-collecting history. Near Wyoming’s Fossil Butte National Monument, he discovered the second tree boa (boavus idelmani) fossil to be found in the area. The first one was unearthed by Robert Lee Craig in 1908 and it had mysteriously disappeared in 1938 from a New York private collection.
What makes the tree boa find so rare is that this species of snake was a land-dwelling species and would have had to fall in the ancient lake by accident. Theories abound to explain how the four-foot snake perished. Examination of the skeleton reveals that its backbone was crushed in two places, perhaps where a large turtle bit it and dispatched it after it fell in the lake. No one can agree on how the snake escaped being eaten by the predator or scavengers, or how it avoided decomposition before fossilization took place. The find was so unique and so exceptionally prepared that a seven-figure price tag was originally placed on the fossil, which was later acquired by the Natural Science Museum in Houston, Texas.
The enterprising Lindgren handles all aspects of his business himself. After acquiring or renewing land leases from local ranchers to be allowed to dig on private land, he may take a few trips to southwestern Wyoming each year to find or purchase fossils—mostly in late spring or summer. In winter, all digging operations cease. It is a time to catch up on a backlog of fossils to be prepared, to design new projects, or to attend the Fossil, Gem and Mineral Show in Tucson, Arizona—the largest fossil expo in the world—to purchase or trade pieces.
To paraphrase Forrest Gump, a block of sedimentary limestone is a bit like a box of chocolates: you never know what you are going to get when you pry its layers apart. It may hold a single fish, a cluster of them, plants, or nothing at all. When a fossil is found, preparation begins. A rough removal of the limestone matrix encasing the fossil is first performed, a process that may take up to five hours for a fossil the size of a trout. To bring out the fine details, another hour of abrading might be necessary, using a tiny micro sandblaster loaded with Dolomite powder. Sometimes a fossil is found without enough stone matrix surrounding it. Lindgren may then carefully remove the fish from the original stone and artistically place it into a new piece of fossil limestone sediment—a process called “inlay.” This intense labor of love is not wasted on Lindgren’s clients, mostly collectors, museums, and interior designers, who recognize the originality of these one-of-a-kind pieces and the skill involved to produce them.
Lindgren’s creations are centered around the concept of fossils as natural art. Large pieces, several square feet in size, may be used as the centerpiece above any home or cabin chimney mantle. Smaller slabs with particularly attractive textures or designs may be made to rest on a natural pedestal such as twisted tree roots to create a stunning coffee table. The smallest of pieces may be arranged in a framed mosaic to be hung on a wall.
Adam lives and breathes his passion for fossils—it’s in his family’s blood, it’s tattooed onto his skin, and it’s carried out in his life’s work. And best of all, he knows how to share.
Visit Adam Lindgren’s website or contact him to arrange a private showing. www.ancientlakefossils.com.