L to R: George Switzer, Vincent Gianella (professor at University of Nevada-Reno), William Nisson, Jesse Peter, and Ed Lyman. The men are seated on a talus slope in front of a sandstone formation and several of them have pick axes in their hands.They appear to be pausing from their study of a rock specimen while Lyman takes a picture of it. He is making the photograph with a 4x5 hand-held camera with the bellows fully extended. A bit of trivia: the invasive plant species Russian Thistle (Salsola kali ) can be noted in the foreground. This is the plant that evolves into "tumbleweed". After it dies back and becomes dry and brittle, it is easily uprooted by a stiff breeze and blows far and wide across the plateausof the West. It often gets lodged in arroyos and fencelines and has even been known to cause car wrecks when it bounds across the highway, headed for the path of on-coming traffic.