Fossils are found everywhere on earth.

In most places, all that's left behind are traces of bones or shells.

But in the high mountain deserts of southwestern Wyoming lie some of the most perfectly preserved remains of ancient life.

Frozen moments in time.

Fossils tell stories of life that refused to disappear.

Traces of their existence lingers on long after the world has changed around them.

This is the story of fossil hunters who search for treasure like the gold miners of the Old West.

They endure extreme weather and treacherous slopes in the hopes of a major discovery and a big payday.

Oh my God!

Cha-ching!

There is a scientific side to the story of fossils, but there is also a human side.

I studied fossils all around the world for my entire career, and I still maintain that Wyoming is the best place on planet Earth to look at the fossils record of our planet.

I encountered people that for many years and sometimes generations have been commercially collecting fossil fish and selling them around the world.

There are millions of years of fossils in there, but trying to find a good one and split in the right layers is what we do.

I like fossils.

I chose fossils.

It's not a lucrative career.

It's hard, but it's rewarding.

Another one in the back.

The people that do this for a living, the commercial enterprise.

They understand what they're saying.

They know the layers.

All know these rocks better than I do.

They live in campers.

They're nomadic, gritty people, good people, I think.

But there is a controversy about the sale of fossils privately.

They should be the public trust.

They shouldn't be subject to general ownership.

Some people say that we don't know exactly what we're doing.

We don't have any formal education, but we actually do care about the scientific value that goes into the specimens we pull out of the ground.

We want to know this information.

This is out love.

This is our pa All the stuff that's in that book came from people like me digging it out of the ground.

And America is just about the last country where fossils are still a free enterprise.

The United States is one of the few jurisdictions where it's legal to collect and export fossils.

They've been trying to put a stop to all that, and we as a group are fighting back it literally millions have been excavated as a result of those millions being excavated.

The much less common things are found.

I tell people I wish I got in the business of selling feathers instead of rocks.

My knees are shot.

I worry about the dust.

The elements are brutal.

I can't quit.

I don't know what else to do.

Really?

I wouldn't know how.