"At Great Salt Lake, near Robert Smithson's iconic earthwork Spiral Jetty, a motley crew of scientists walks the mudflats to study fossils in the making. This reputedly dead sea is home to countless tar seeps, pools of raw oil that act as the perfect preservative, encasing organisms as they were in life. In this spare landscape, an intricate web of life unfurls. Halophiles--salt-hungry microorganisms--tint the brackish water pink and orange; crystals...