MOSASAURS: LORDS OF OUR CRETACEOUS SEAS

A Mosasaur Snatches a Tasty Bite

Slip beneath the surface of a Late Cretaceous ocean—if you dare—and you enter the domain of one of Earth’s most spectacular marine predators: the mosasaur. 

Long before whales ruled the deep, these muscular, paddle-limbed lizards patrolled warm inland seas with the confidence of creatures that knew nothing could challenge them for long.

Imagine a body built like a torpedo, jaws hinged like a trap, and teeth designed for the dual purposes of slicing and holding. Some species stretched over 15 metres long—longer than a city bus—yet they moved with the agility of oversized crocodiles on turbo mode. 

With a powerful tail fin beating side to side, they could lunge forward in explosive bursts, swallowing ammonites whole or ambushing unsuspecting sharks. Yes—sharks were on their menu.

Scientifically, mosasaurs are a wonderful paradox. They were reptiles—close cousins of modern monitor lizards—but they evolved flippers, streamlined skulls, and even tail flukes remarkably similar to those of whales and ichthyosaurs. Convergent evolution at its flashy finest.

Mosasaurs hunted in our Cretaceous Seas

Their fossils also tell a tale of planetary drama. The chalky cliffs of Europe, the badlands of Morocco, the ancient seaways of Kansas—all hold the remains of these sea dragons. 

Every jawbone and vertebra is a relic from a vanished ocean that once split North America in two.

Along the rugged shores of Vancouver Island, mosasaurs left their mark as well. 

In the Nanaimo Group—marine deposits laid down in the twilight of the Cretaceous—researchers have uncovered beautifully preserved remains that once cruised the ancient Pacific coastline. 

Species recorded from these rocks include Tylosaurus pembinensis, Plioplatecarpus marshii, Mosasaurus hoffmanni, Clidastes liodontus, and the smaller but no less impressive Phosphorosaurus ponpetelegans. 

These fossils, often found in shale and sandstone, offer a rare West Coast window into the last great age of marine reptiles.

And yet, their spectacular reign was brief. When the asteroid struck 66 million years ago, the seas dimmed, the food chains collapsed, and even these titans couldn’t outswim extinction.

But in stone, they still roar. Their skeletons—sleek, predatory, impossibly elegant—remind us that Earth’s oceans were once ruled by lizards the size of whales… and that nature occasionally writes stories no novelist would dare invent.

FOSSILS OF THE UPPER CRETACEOUS MOTORCROSS SITE: NANAIMO

Steller's Jay, Cyanocitta stelleri

One of the classic fossil localities on Vancouver Island lies within the Santonian–Maastrichtian (Upper Cretaceous) Haslam Formation at the old Motocross Pit near Brannen Lake, just outside Nanaimo, British Columbia. 

Once an active quarry, the site now hums with the roar of dirt bikes and the scent of gasoline and wet earth carried on the coastal wind. The air is cool and mineral-rich, and if you pause between races, you can catch the distant rush of Benson Creek Falls through the evergreens. 

A smaller gravel operation still works nearby, closer to Ammonite Falls, where shale and sandstone beds of the Nanaimo Group continue to reveal fossils from an ancient seaway that once covered this region. 

Despite its modern transformation, the Motocross Pit remains one of the most storied and scientifically valuable fossil sites of the Nanaimo Group.

We find well-preserved nautiloids and ammonites — Canadoceras, Pseudoschloenbachia, Epigoniceras — the bivalves — Inoceramus, Sphenoceramus— gastropods, and classic Nanaimo Group decapods — Hoploparia, Linuparus. We also find fossil fruit and seeds which tell the story of the terrestrial history of Vancouver Island.

The Motocross Pit locality was first brought to my attention by John Fam, Vice-Chair of the Vancouver Island Paleontological Society (VanPS). John is one of those rare individuals whose enthusiasm for paleontology is matched only by his warmth and generosity. During his years on Vancouver Island, he was an active VanPS member and a key collaborator during my tenure as Chair. Many of the most memorable joint VIPS/VanPS expeditions were sparked by his curiosity, leadership, and infectious passion for fossils.

John grew up just fifteen minutes from the Motocross locality and spent countless hours there collecting specimens with his father. His love of fossils is a family affair—one that continues today with his wife, Grace, and their two young sons, who now share in the same sense of wonder that first drew John to the site.

I first met John many years ago and still remember staying overnight at his parents’ home before a weekend field trip to Jurassic Point. That evening, he shared stories of his early fossil-hunting adventures and walked me through his carefully curated collection—an experience that spoke volumes about his dedication to the science and art of paleontology.

Upper Cretaceous Haslam Fm near Brannen Lake

Inspired by his stories, I later visited the Motocross Pit with my uncle Doug, a kind and curious man who had explored much of the coast but had never seen this fossil treasure so close to home. 

We spent the day walking through time together, tracing the ancient layers of the Cretaceous seafloor. 

When I returned to the site alone this past year, the wind in the trees and the scent of damp shale carried a bittersweet note—reminding me of the joy of that shared day and of one of the best men I have ever known, now gone but never forgotten. 

As I approached the site, there were no people around, so I walked the periphery looking for the bedrock of the Haslam. The rocks we find here were laid down south of the equator as small, tropical islands. They rode across the Pacific heading north and slightly east over the past 80 million years to where we find them today.

Upper Cretaceous Haslam Formation Motocross Pit

Jim Haggart and Peter Ward have each made remarkable contributions to our understanding of the rich molluscan fauna of the Nanaimo Group, the Late Cretaceous sedimentary sequence that records the history of an ancient seaway once spanning much of what is now coastal British Columbia and Washington State.

Both men bring to paleontology a mix of scholarly rigor and adventurous spirit—embodying, in the best sense, that “Indiana Jones” archetype of the field scientist: field-worn boots, weathered notebooks, and an endless curiosity for the deep past. 

Their fieldwork across Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands, and the San Juan archipelago has provided essential biostratigraphic correlations, linking fossil assemblages across what were once the submerged margins of the Wrangellia Terrane. 

Through careful mapping, fossil collection, and stratigraphic analysis, their work has helped clarify the temporal and environmental relationships among the various formations of the Nanaimo Group, from the Haslam and Extension to the Pender and Geoffrey formations.

Haggart and Ward’s research builds on a long tradition of geologic and paleontological inquiry in the region. Foundational studies by Usher (1952), Matsumoto (1959a, 1959b), and Mallory (1977) established the first detailed taxonomic and biostratigraphic frameworks for these Late Cretaceous faunas. 

Equally significant was the work of Muller and Jeletzky (1970), who untangled the complex lithostratigraphic and biostratigraphic relationships within the Nanaimo Group—providing the bedrock upon which modern interpretations stand.

Together, this lineage of research has transformed the Nanaimo Group from a series of scattered coastal outcrops into one of the best-documented Cretaceous marine sequences in western North America, offering crucial insight into paleogeography, faunal migration, and the dynamic tectonic history of the Pacific margin.

Candoceras yokoyama, Photo: John Fam, VanPS

As I walked along the bedrock of the Haslam, a Steller's Jay, Cyanocitta stelleri, followed me from tree to tree making his guttural shook, shook, shook call. 

Instructive, he seemed to be encouraging me, timing his hoots to the beat of my hammer. Vancouver Island truly has glorious flora and fauna.

Fancy some additional reading? Check out a paper published in the Journal of Paleontology back in 1989 by Haggard and Ward on Nanaimo Group Ammonites from British Columbia and Washington State.

In it, they look at the ammonite species Puzosia (Mesopuzosia) densicostata Matsumoto, Kitchinites (Neopuzosia) japonicus Spath, Anapachydiscus cf. A. nelchinensis Jones, Menuites cf. M. menu (Forbes), Submortoniceras chicoense (Trask), and Baculites cf. B. boulei Collignon are described from Santonian--Campanian strata of western Canada and northwestern United States.

Stratigraphic occurrences and ranges of the species are summarized and those taxa important for correlation with other areas in the north Pacific region and Late Cretaceous ammonite fauna of the Indo-Pacific region. Here's the link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1305358?seq=1

Peter Ward is a prolific author, both of scientific papers and more popularized works. I highly recommend his book Gorgon: Paleontology, Obsession, and the Greatest Catastrophe in Earth's History. It is an engaging romp through a decade's research in South Africa's Karoo Desert.

Photo: Candoceras yokoyamai from Upper Cretaceous Haslam formation (Lower Campanian) near Nanaimo, British Columbia. One of the earliest fossils collected by John Fam (1993). Prepared using only a cold chisel and hammer. Photo & collection of John Fam, VIPS.

WINTER LIGHT: NUSFJORD, LOFOTEN

Nusfjord, Lofoten, Norway

In the soft blue twilight of a Lofoten winter, the village of Nusfjord sits cradled between mountains that rise like frozen waves. 

Wooden rorbuer—those classic red fishermen’s cabins—hug the harbour, their walls creaking softly in the cold. 

A sharp, salty breeze drifts through the village, carrying with it the unmistakable tang of drying cod—rich, briny, and threaded with the cold bite of the Arctic sea.

The air is crisp with the scent of the sea and cod drying on wooden racks, rows of fish stiff as boards in the Arctic wind. 

Gulls wheel overhead, their cries echoing off the fjord walls, while beneath the surface, the North Atlantic swirls dark and ancient, shaped by ice, fire, and time. The gulls know a meal is at hand if they can catch you unaware.

Nusfjord, one of Norway’s best-preserved fishing villages, tells a story of the rugged people who live here, the sea and its bounty but also a great geological drama. The stone on which it rests—gneiss and schist—was forged nearly 3 billion years ago, among the oldest rocks in Europe. These are remnants of Earth’s early continental crust, once buried miles below the surface. 

Over eons, tectonic collisions folded, pressed, and recrystallized them, transforming simple sediments into the gleaming banded rocks you see today.

The rugged backdrop of the Lofoten Islands owes its shape to the Caledonian Orogeny, a mountain-building event that occurred some 400 million years ago, when the ancient continents of Laurentia and Baltica collided. The pressures of that collision thrust deep crustal rocks upward, forming mountains that once rivaled the Himalayas. 

Time, glaciers, and relentless coastal erosion have since sculpted those peaks into the steep, knife-edged forms that now cradle Nusfjord like the walls of a stony amphitheatre.

During the last Ice Age, glaciers carved deep U-shaped valleys through these hard rocks, leaving behind the fjords we know today. As the ice retreated roughly 10,000 years ago, the sea flooded these valleys, creating a perfect natural harbour—sheltered from storms, yet open to the rich fishing grounds of the Norwegian Sea. It was this unique geography that first drew Norse fishermen here more than a thousand years ago, setting the stage for Nusfjord’s long relationship with cod.

While the fish still hang to dry each winter—a ritual unchanged for centuries—the rocks whisper stories of an even older world. Every granite ridge and polished outcrop is a page from the deep-time chronicle of our planet. It is icy poetry by all accounts and one of my favourite parts of the world.

In Nusfjord, geology and human history intertwine as seamlessly as sea and sky: a place where the bones of the Earth rise through ice and salt air, and the past is written in both stone and scales.

PETALS FROZEN IN TIME: THE PRINCETON CHERT

It began with a bloom, Florissantia quilchenensis, its petals splayed across a creamy, beige-brown matrix like a fossilized whisper from a warmer world. 

This precious bloom was hard-earned. Covered in dust and sweat, I grinned and held this elusive beauty to the light to take in its exceptional preservation and dusty beauty!

It was day three of my travels. I was hiking the hills around the town of Princeton in the Similkameen region of southern British Columbia, Canada. 

The former mining and railway hub lies at the confluence of the Tulameen into the Similkameen River, just east of the Cascade Mountains. It is dry, arid country covered by native grasslands and low scrub. 

Princeton, BC is located in the traditional territories of the Nlaka’pamux and Syilx (Okanagan) peoples. 

The region has historical significance for the Syilx, particularly the Upper and Lower Similkameen Indian Bands, and has been an important area for gathering red ochre for thousands of years. I had first explored the region looking for red ochre deposits to photograph, always with an eye to the local fossils.

On this particular trip, I was searching for fossils and the iconic flower, Florissantia, in the slopes known locally as Hospital Hill.

A lucky split brought a eureka moment. Is it? Could it be? Yes! Peeling back the layers, I had uncovered a near perfect flower and the treasure I had long been seeking. Searching for Florissantia had brought me to the Princeton area on many occasions but my first was found on this trip. 

Under a hand lens, its details unfurl: each vein etched in silica, each contour revealed with startling fidelity. 

I had uncovered a perfect flower, a time capsule telling us about the landscape as it once was, lush, tropical, and steaming with life.

This singular fossil, preserved in almost impossibly fine detail, is one of the jewels of the Princeton Chert, a fossil treasure hidden in the hills of British Columbia. 

Here, an entire ancient ecosystem—plants, fungi, fish, and the delicate traces of vanished warmth—was captured in stone with such precision that cell walls, stomata, and even parasitic fungi remain visible 48 million years later.

The Princeton Chert lies tucked along the east bank of the Similkameen River, 8.5 km south of the town of Princeton, B.C. At first glance, the exposures of the Allenby Formation appear unassuming: thinly layered bands of shale, coal, and pale chert. 

But within these layers, we've discovered something extraordinary—an anatomically preserved flora, fossilized in three dimensions. Unlike typical compression fossils, these organisms were permeated by silica-rich waters so quickly and so thoroughly that even their internal structures survived.

Since the 1950s, collectors and researchers have pulled back the curtain on this Eocene world, but it was in the 1970s and onward that the Chert achieved global attention. Scientists recognized that the Princeton Chert wasn’t just another fossil site. 

It was a Lagerstätte of unparalleled richness—one of the few places on Earth where entire plant communities are preserved down to the microscopic level.

Thin-sectioned under a microscope, these fossils show xylem vessels, aerenchyma, reproductive organs, pollen, seeds, roots, and fungal pathogens—all exquisitely intact. Few fossil floras in the world rival this clarity.

The Princeton Chert formed in a landscape shaped by fire and water. Its 49 known chert layers, ranging from thin wafers to thick beds over half a metre, alternate with volcanic ash, coal, and shale. Each layer represents a momentary pause in time—a lake or pond basin repeatedly drowned in silica-rich waters after nearby volcanic eruptions.

Radiometric dating now places the site at 48.7 million years old, deep within the Early Eocene Ypresian Stage, a time when Earth’s climate simmered near its all-time warmest. Greenhouse gases were high, ice was nearly absent, and tropical warmth lapped into polar regions.

The Princeton Chert flora thrived in shallow lakes and quiet backwaters. Many species were fully aquatic or semi-aquatic, and the fossils show unmistakable features of plants adapted to waterlogged conditions:

• Reduced vascular tissue (because buoyant plants need little support)
• Aerenchyma—honeycombed air chambers for floatation
• Protoxylem lacunae, ringed by thick-walled cells

Many of these plants have close relatives today:

• Allenbya – a water lily
• Keratosperma – an arum with curling, sculptural leaves
• Alismataceae – water plantains
• Ethela – rush-like monocots and sedges

Seeds, fruits, and roots appear in beautiful profusion. Meanwhile, terrestrial plants—those carried in by floods or dropped by birds—are rare but present.

The chert also preserves snippets of the animals that lived alongside these aquatic gardens. In the overlying shale beds, paleontologists have recovered Amia (bowfins), Amyzon, Libotonius, and even a soft-shelled turtle—a small but telling cast of freshwater neighbours.

One of the most remarkable aspects of the Princeton Chert is its preservation of fungi. Here, we have identified:

• Tar spot fungi parasitizing Uhlia palm leaves
• Cryptodidymosphaerites princetonensis, a mycoparasite attacking the tar spot fungus
• Ectomycorrhizae—the first ever documented fossil mycorrhizal symbiosis with Pinus

In Metasequoia milleri, the Eocene ancestor of modern dawn redwood, mycorrhizal relationships appear nearly identical to those in modern forests. It is as though 50 million years have passed with hardly a change.

The Princeton Chert has attracted generations of paleobotanists, sedimentologists, and fossil enthusiasts, each drawn to its exquisite three-dimensional preservation and its window into Eocene ecosystems. 

Charles William “Chuck” Basinger, a Canadian paleobotanist renowned for his work on anatomically preserved plants and early conifer evolution. His meticulous studies helped illuminate the internal structures of Princeton Chert flora at cellular resolution. 

Ruth A. Stockey, a leading paleobotanist specialising in fossil conifers, seed plants, and reproductive biology, has published (along with her many grad students) extensively on the chert’s gymnosperms and angiosperms, reconstructing entire plants from roots to reproductive organs. 

Together with many collaborators over the decades, these scientists have pieced together a vivid portrait of ancient wetland forests—lush, diverse, and humming with microscopic and macroscopic life. 

The site is also beloved within the fossil-collecting community. The Vancouver Paleontological Society (VanPS) has organized field trips here for decades. 

Many members remember their first visit: crouched on a hot summer slope, poking about the roadcuts, collecting fossil insects and plants. One of the first large scale field trips to the region by the VanPS was part of the first BCPA Symposium held in 1998 at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. 

Smaller field trips became a regular occurrence, usually one every year or two, and that trend continues. The result of all that exploration is a greater understanding of the many fossil species to be found here.

Dan Bowden of the VanPS has done some wonderful work cataloguing the many fossils found here, with a particularly good eye in identifying the fossil insects. 

These excursions have helped train new generations of citizen scientists, fostering a deep respect for the site’s scientific importance.

If you plan to head to Princeton, be sure to include the Princeton & District Museum on your travels. The museum holds a good selection of the local fossils. It is located at 167 Vermillion Avenue, Princeton, BC, V0X 1W0. You can confirm their house on their website at princetonmuseum.org

Know Before You Go: Exploring the Fossil Lakes of British Columbia

Getting There from Vancouver

• Drive east on Highway 1 through Hope, then continue along Highway 3 (the Crowsnest Highway). The town of Hope offers a good place to stop for a meal and gas up your vehicle.
• Pass through Manning Park and descend into the Similkameen Valley toward Princeton.
• The Princeton Chert itself is on private and protected land; access requires permission and often participation in sanctioned society trips.
• Surface collecting yields a wonderful assortment of fossils. 

FOSSILS, FISH AND FLAMING VOLCANOES: INTERIOR BC'S HISTORIC PAST

A Bird's Eye View of BC's Interior

Once upon a geologic time—about 52 million years ago—British Columbia wasn’t the mountain-studded landscape we know today. 

Instead, imagine a steaming chain of tropical islands floating in a warm inland sea, alive with crocodiles, palm trees, and enough volcanic activity to make any self-respecting geologist swoon.

Welcome to Eocene British Columbia—where the rocks are hot, the fossils are cool, and the story of our province’s ancient past stretches like a spine from north to south, stitched together by layers of lakebed shales and volcanic ash.

Let’s start at the McAbee Fossil Beds, just outside of Kamloops. This UNESCO-designated site is a world-class window into the Eocene Epoch. 

The rocks here formed at the bottom of an ancient lake, gently collecting the remains of leaves, insects, and fish that fluttered or flopped in at inconvenient moments. The preservation is exquisite—delicate leaf veins, dragonfly wings, even the odd fish fin are preserved in glorious, paper-thin shale. It’s like nature’s own scrapbook from the dawn of modern ecosystems.

McAbee Fossil Beds with Dr. Lawrence Yang's Crew

These fossils tell us that McAbee was once warm and lush, home to dawn redwoods, ginkgo trees, and the ancestors of modern maples. 

You can see the wonderfully distinct hoodoos up above the fossil site and in this photo, you can see Dr. Lawrence Yang and crew from a field trip we did there a few years ago.

But McAbee didn't look at all like this when the fossils were laid down. 

Picture tropical rainforests thriving where today you find sagebrush and rattlesnakes. 

Yes—Kamloops was once the Kamloops Rainforest. Try putting that on a postcard.

And McAbee isn’t alone. It’s just one stop on an ancient island arc that spanned the province. 

Head north to Driftwood Canyon near Smithers, where paper-thin fossils of fish and insects record a similar story of subtropical serenity. 

A Tasty Selection of Eocene Fossils from BC

Go south to Quilchena, where you’ll find the same lacustrine (lake-formed) layers yielding fossilized leaves and fish that look like they could still dart away if you poked them. The preservation is outstanding. 

Keep going across the border to Republic, Washington, and you’re still following the same Eocene lake chain—like geological breadcrumbs leading back to a time when the west coast was a simmering stew of volcanoes and freshwater basins.

Two of my favourite Eocene fish fossils from the region are Eohiodon, a genus related to the modern mooneye, found at McAbee and Princeton. And Amyzon aggregatum, a type of sucker fish found in the varved lake sediments near Horsefly.

British Columbia has never been shy about rearranging itself. Back in the Eocene, the region was being pulled, pushed, and smushed by tectonic forces. Volcanic eruptions blanketed lakes with fine ash—excellent for fossil-making but less great for anyone hoping for a sunny day at the beach. 

Over time, these lakes filled with sediment, entombing plants, fish, and insects beneath fine-grained layers that later hardened into shale.

The result: a geological photo album spanning millions of years, now tilted and lifted into the dry hills around Kamloops.

I have only visited once since the Bonaparte First Nation took over management of the McAbee Fossil Beds. I brought them some fossils, scientific papers and shared stories of the history of the site from a paleo perspective. I shared about the folks who first leased the land and worked to expand the site, Dave Langevin and John Leahy. The many field trips there by members of the Vancouver Paleontological Society and other groups. The site has a rich fossil history deep in time but also in the last 30 years.  

Eocene Fossil Fish from McAbee

They graciously allowed me to bring some folk up to explore and shared their desire to create a visitor and research center, enhancing public programming with Indigenous cultural activities. 

The Nation aims to highlight the scientific and cultural significance of the area, with a long-term goal of making it a premier Indigenous destination. 

Kneeling in that parched, golden landscape, it’s hard to imagine it once echoed with the croaks of ancient frogs and the buzz of tropical insects. 

But each fossil leaf, precious fossilized feather, March Fly and dragonfly wing at McAbee whispers the same improbable truth: British Columbia was once a lush archipelago of volcanic islands in a balmy world, a far cry from today’s ski slopes and spruce forests.

These sites hold a special place in my heart as they are some of the few that I visited as a teen with my mother and sister. I made repeated trips over the years as the Chair of the Vancouver Paleontological Society, but those early memories are especially dear to me.

As I drive through the Thompson Plateau and see those striped outcrops of shale, I give them a thoughtful nod. They’re the leftovers of a long-vanished paradise that remains a fossil treasure trove today. 

A DELIGHTFUL VISIT AND UNEXPECTED METASEQUOIA

Metasequoia sp., collection of Judy Hill

There is something deeply comforting about encountering a familiar fossil in the company of wonderfully engaging friends.

Yesterday delivered both gifts at once. I wandered into the Judy Hill Gallery on Vancouver Island—a place I enjoy visiting to soak in its stunning collection of Pacific Northwest Coast art and to chat with the gallery’s warm, knowledgeable team.

As we talked, Judy Hill herself brought out a remarkable treasure: a beautifully preserved Metasequoia fossil.

Its story is as intriguing as the specimen itself. Originally collected under the assumption it might be a petroglyph—its true origins a mystery—it was entrusted to Judy for safekeeping.

Of course it was. Judy is the heart and soul of the Judy Hill Gallery in Duncan, British Columbia, a family-run haven that has championed Indigenous art for more than 30 years. She is as lovely as she is learned, known not only for her expertise but for the kindness, generosity, and deep respect she brings to every relationship.

Perhaps because of this, people bring their curiosities, their heirlooms, and their unusual finds to her, knowing they will be honoured and protected.

And so, in the quiet magic of an impromptu morning visit, this Metasequoia sp. fossil came into view—another beautiful piece of natural history finding its way, as so many treasures do, to Judy’s caring hands. 

Metasequoia, McAbee Fossil Beds

The fossil is an ancient cousin to one of the many native trees on Vancouver, the lovely conifer Metasequoia glyptostroboides — the dawn redwood. 

Of this long lineage, the sole surviving species in the genus Metasequoia and one of three species of conifers known as redwoods, is Metasequoia glyptostroboides. Metasequoia are the smaller cousins of the mighty Giant Sequoia, the most massive trees on Earth. 

As a group, the redwoods are impressive trees and very long-lived. The President, an ancient Giant Sequoia, Sequoiadendron giganteum, and granddaddy to them all has lived for more than 3,200 years. While this tree is named The President, a worthy name, it doesn't really cover the magnitude of this giant by half.   

This tree was a wee seedling making its way in the soils of the Sierra Nevada mountains of California before we invented writing. It had reached full height before any of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, those remarkable constructions of classical antiquity, were even an inkling of our budding human achievements. And it has outlasted them all save the Great Pyramid of Giza, the oldest and last of those seven still standing, though the tree has faired better. Giza still stands but the majority of the limestone façade is long gone.

Aside from their good looks (which can really only get you so far), they are resistant to fire and insects through a combined effort of bark over a foot thick, a high tannin content and minimal resin, a genius of evolutionary design. 

While individual Metasequoia live a long time, as a genus they have lived far longer. 

Like Phoenix from the Ashes, the Cretaceous (K-Pg) extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs, ammonites and more than seventy-five percent of all species on the planet was their curtain call. The void left by that devastation saw the birth of this genus — and they have not changed all that much in the 65 million years since. Modern Metasequoia glyptostroboides looks pretty much identical to their late Cretaceous brethren.

Dawn Redwood Cones

They are remarkably similar to and sometimes mistaken for Sequoia at first glance but are easily distinguishable if you look at their size (an obvious visual in a mature tree) or to their needles and cones in younger specimens. 

Metasequoia has paired needles that attach opposite to each other on the compound stem. 

Sequoia needles are offset and attached alternately. Think of the pattern as jumping versus walking with your two feet moving forward parallel to one another. 

Metasequoia needles are paired as if you were jumping forward, one print beside the other, while Sequoia needles have the one-in-front-of-the-other pattern of walking.

The seed-bearing cones of Metasequoia have a stalk at their base and the scales are arranged in paired opposite rows which you can see quite well in the visual above. Coast redwood cone scales are arranged in a spiral and lack a stalk at their base.

Although the least tall of the redwoods, it grows to an impressive sixty meters (200 feet) in height. It is sometimes called Shui-sa, or water fir by those who live in the secluded mountainous region of China where it was rediscovered.

Fossil Metasequoia, McAbee Fossil Beds

Metasequoia fossils are known from many areas in the Northern Hemisphere and were one of my first fossil finds as a teenager. 

And folk love naming them. More than twenty fossil species have been named over time —  some even identified as the genus Sequoia in error — but for all their collective efforts to beef up this genus there are just three species: Metasequoia foxii, Metasequoia milleri, and Metasequoia occidentalis.

During the Paleocene and Eocene, extensive forests of Metasequoia thrived as far north as Strathcona Fiord on Ellesmere Island and sites on Axel Heiberg Island in Canada's far north around 80° N latitude.

We find lovely examples of Metasequoia occidentalis in the Eocene outcrops at McAbee near Cache Creek, British Columbia, Canada. I shared a photo here of one of those specimens. Once this piece dries out a bit, I will take a dental pick to it to reveal some of the teaser fossils peeking out.

The McAbee Fossil Beds are known for their incredible abundance, diversity and quality of fossils including lovely plant, insect and fish species that lived in an old lake bed setting. While the Metasequoia and other fossils found here are 52-53 million years old, the genus is much older. It is quite remarkable that both their fossil and extant lineage were discovered in just a few years of one another. 

Metasequoia was first described as a new genus from a fossil specimen found in 1939 and published by Japanese paleobotanist Shigeru Miki in 1941. Remarkably, the living version of this new genus was discovered later that same year. 

Professor Zhan Wang, an official from the Bureau of Forest Research was recovering from malaria at an old school chum's home in central China. His friend told him of a stand of trees discovered in the winter of 1941 by Chinese botanist Toh Gan (干铎). The trees were not far away from where they were staying and Gan's winter visit meant he did not collect any specimen as the trees had lost their leaves. 

The locals called the trees Shui-sa, or water fir. As trees go, they were reportedly quite impressive with some growing as much as sixty feet tall. Wang was excited by the possibility of finding a new species and asked his friend to describe the trees and their needles in detail. Emboldened by the tale, Wang set off through the remote mountains to search for his mysterious trees and found them deep in the heart of  Modaoxi (磨刀溪; now renamed Moudao (谋道), in Lichuan County, in the central China province of Hubei. He found the trees and was able to collect living specimens but initially thought they were from Glyptostrobus pensilis (水松). 

A few years later, Wang showed the trees to botanist Wan-Chun Cheng and learned that these were not the leaves of s Glyptostrobus pensilis (水松 ) but belonged to a new species. 

While the find was exciting, it was overshadowed by China's ongoing conflict with the Japanese that was continuing to escalate. With war at hand, Wang's research funding and science focus needed to be set aside for another two years as he fled the bombing of Beijing. 

When you live in a world without war on home soil it is easy to forget the realities for those who grew up in it. 

Zhan Wang and his family lived to witness the 1931 invasion of Manchuria, then the 1937 clash between Chinese and Japanese troops at the Marco Polo Bridge, just outside Beijing. 

That clash sparked an all-out war that would grow in ferocity to become World War II. 

Within a year, the Chinese military situation was dire. Most of eastern China lay in Japanese hands: Shanghai, Nanjing, Beijing, Wuhan. As the Japanese advanced, they left a devastated population in their path where atrocity after atrocity was the norm. Many outside observers assumed that China could not hold out, and the most likely scenario was a Japanese victory over China.

Yet the Chinese hung on, and after the horrors of Pearl Harbor, the war became genuinely global. The western Allies and China were now united in their war against Japan, a conflict that would finally end on September 2, 1945, after Allied naval forces blockaded Japan and subjected the island nation to intensive bombing, including the utter devastation that was the Enola Gay's atomic payload over Hiroshima. 

With World War II behind them, the Chinese researchers were able to re-focus their energies on the sciences. Sadly, Wang was not able to join them. Instead, two of his colleagues, Wan Chun Cheng and Hu Hsen Hsu, the director of Fan Memorial Institute of Biology would continue the work. Wan-Chun Cheng sent specimens to Hu Hsen Hsu and upon examination realised they were the living version of the trees Miki had published upon in 1941. 

Hu and Cheng published a paper describing a new living species of Metasequoia in May 1948 in the Bulletin of Fan Memorial Institute of Biology.

That same year, Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University sent an expedition to collect seeds and, soon after, seedling trees were distributed to various universities and arboreta worldwide. 

Today, Metasequoia grow around the globe. When I see them, I think of Wang and all he went through. He survived the conflict and went on to teach other bright, young minds about the bountiful flora in China. I think of Wan Chun Cheng collaborating with Hu Hsen Hsu in a time of war and of Hu keeping up to date on scientific research, even published works from colleagues from countries with whom his country was at war. 

Deep in my belly, I ache for the huge cost to science, research and all the species impacted on the planet from our human conflicts. Each year in April, I plant more Metasequoia to celebrate Earth Day and all that means for every living thing on this big blue orb.  

References: 

• https://web.stanford.edu/group/humbioresearch/cgi-bin/wordpress/?p=297
• https://humboldtredwoods.org/redwoods

Lead Photo Credit: This lovely Metasequoia sp. is in the collections of Judy Hill—gallery owner, connector, and a steadfast advocate for Indigenous artistry. To visit the gallery virtually, head to: https://www.judyhillgallery.net. It is a visual feast!

THE BULL CANYON TRACKSITE OF EASTERN UTAH

Darrin Mottler's Human to Theropod Comparison

The wind always arrives first.

It sweeps across the red cliffs of eastern Utah, brushing your shoulders like a quiet invitation as you step out onto the stone. 

The La Sal Mountains rise blue and snow-dusted on the horizon—silent, ancient witnesses. 

At your feet, the sandstone is warm, sun-baked, and patterned with bowls and dimples that look, at first, like the aftermath of a rainstorm.

But then you kneel.

You place your hand inside one of the indentations—fingers spreading to follow the outline—and suddenly time collapses. 

Your palm disappears into a footprint three times the size of your own, pressed into this rock nearly 190 million years ago by a three-toed dinosaur striding across a muddy lakeshore. 

The warmth of the desert stone meets your fingers and presses against the cool, deep sensation of time.

This is Bull Canyon Tracksite, one of Utah’s most awe-inspiring windows into the Jurassic.

Bull Canyon lies on the western flank of the La Sal Mountains, within a rugged plateau of red Wingate and Navajo sandstone. The site preserves an astonishing spread of footprints left by Early Jurassic theropods—light, agile, meat-eating dinosaurs with talons and hollow bones, the forerunners of modern birds.

Dinosaur Track, Bull Canyon, Utah

The tracks rest within the Glen Canyon Group formations, sediments laid down along the shifting margins of a prehistoric playa lake system. 

Here, mudflats dried and cracked under the sun, then were wetted again by brief storms—an ideal condition for holding tracks long enough to be buried by the next layer of sand.

Among the most distinctive ichnotaxa present are:

• Grallator – small, delicate three-toed prints often linked to slender theropods.
• Eubrontes – larger, deeper, more robust prints associated with big-bodied carnivores like Dilophosaurus.
• Occasional ornithischian tracks, including possible Anomoepus prints, representing small herbivorous dinosaurs moving across the same shoreline.

Dinosaur Track, Bull Canyon, Utah

Standing before them, the sandstone seems alive with movement. Each footprint shows a frozen splash of action: the slip of a claw, the twist of a heel, the moment a predator shifted its weight.

Every print reveals insights. Some trackways show animals striding with long, confident steps—suggesting a loping, ground-covering gait. Others are tight and compact, indicating slower or more cautious movement.

Parallel trackways record two or more animals moving in the same direction at the same time—possible group travel, or predators trailing prey.

A few prints deform the underlying sediment, proof that the ground was saturated with water. Others preserve delicate claw tips, showing firmer, drying mud. These shifts map out rapid climate cycles in Early Jurassic Utah.

It’s a moment-by-moment account of life—written in the most ephemeral of materials. 

So why does eastern Utah have so many dinosaur tracks? The region around Moab and the La Sal foothills is a world-class dinosaur track corridor with many elements at play.

• Jurassic climate: alternating wet and dry periods created perfect track-preservation conditions.
• Basins & playas: low-lying flats captured footprints from multiple dinosaur species.
• Rapid burial: shifting dunes and lake sediments quickly sealed impressions.
• Erosion today: modern uplift and weathering have brought these ancient surfaces back to light.

Bull Canyon is one of the most accessible of the sites, offering broad paleosurface exposures ideal for study and public viewing. If you visit at sunrise, the low light throws shadows into the footprints. The tracks seem to deepen, their edges turning crisp like the outline of a freshly pressed print. 

Photo Credit: All photos shown here are by the deeply awesome Darrin Mottler, who generously shared them with me and introduced me to the site. Appreciate you, Darrin!

ROCK BUFFET: THE CURIOUS CASE OF GASTROLITHS

Gastrolith from Traskasaura sandrae

There’s a fine line between “swallowed by accident” and “intentional meal plan,” and few fossils illustrate that better than the humble gastrolith—literally, a “stomach stone.”

Our story begins, fittingly, in the belly of a marine reptile from Vancouver Island’s Trent River—a local who took the phrase “gut of stone” rather literally. 

This polished pebble once tumbled through Cretaceous surf some 80 million years ago, only to end up as part of a Mesozoic digestive strategy. 

Today, it sits fossilised and gleaming in the Courtenay Museum, a geological souvenir from an age when eating rocks was not just tolerated but recommended. 

This lovely was found in the belly of a new genus and species of elasmosaur named Traskasaura sandrae, in honour of the Trask family — Mike, Pat and Heather Trask.

Gastroliths—smooth stones swallowed on purpose—were the original “multi-tools” of digestion. They turn up in the fossil record of marine reptiles like plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs, in dinosaurs from Camarasaurus to Caudipteryx, and even in modern birds and crocodiles. 

Think of them as internal food processors—helping grind up shellfish, bones, and whatever else made the Mesozoic menu.

Why rocks? Well, if you’re a giant aquatic reptile with flippers instead of forks, chewing isn’t really an option. Instead, you gulp your prey whole, toss in a few stones, and let physics do the work. 

Inside the muscular gizzard, those gastroliths tumble around, mashing up food like a prehistoric smoothie blender. They also may have served as ballast, helping the reptile fine-tune buoyancy—a sort of stone-age scuba weight belt.

Of course, scientists have debated which role was more important: digestion or diving? Were these animals after smoother sailing or smoother meals? The jury’s still out, but the answer might be “both”—because why not have a rock that multitasks?

The Trent River specimen, like others from Vancouver Island’s fossil beds, is particularly well-rounded—literally. Its polished surface hints at long tumbling in surf before being swallowed, and longer wear inside a reptilian stomach before being fossilised. 

Imagine being a small stone, minding your own business in the shallows, when suddenly—gulp!—you’re swept into the digestive adventures of a marine predator. Millions of years later, you emerge as a museum piece. Talk about a career arc.

Modern birds still use gastroliths, so next time you watch a chicken pecking gravel, remember—it’s not just weird farmyard behaviour. It’s a direct evolutionary link to ancient seagoing reptiles. The same survival trick that helped plesiosaurs patrol the Cretaceous seas now helps your backyard hen break down corn.

So, the next time you’re strolling along the Trent River and spot a rounded pebble, take a closer look. Could it be a river stone? Sure. But it could also be the relic of a reptilian digestive system, polished by waves, stomach acid, and time itself. Because in the fossil record, even the smallest stone can tell a story—and in this case, it’s a story of rocks, reptiles, and the enduring appeal of an all-you-can-eat buffet… with a little extra crunch.

Gastrolith Image: Outside of the field of view of this photo is Mike Trask sitting beside me telling all about the construction of the scaffolding he devised for the extraction of the elasmosaur bones. 

Across the river, his twin brother Pat was covering the bones in a protective case and oodles of VIPS volunteers were getting ready for the big moment when the bones would be taken out of the cliff. 

It is a bittersweet memory, as Mike has gone for his last walk in the woods and is waiting for our next adventure on the other side. I miss that man so much. 

SVALBARD: RAPID EVOLUTIONARY RADIATION AFTER THE PERMIAN EXTINCTION EVENT

Trekking in Svalbard, Norwegian Arctic

When the end-Permian extinction struck 252 million years ago, it nearly wiped the slate clean. 

More than 80% of marine species vanished. Coral reefs collapsed. Food webs unraveled. Paleontologists long believed that ocean life, particularly vertebrates, clawed its way back slowly and stepwise, with ecosystems taking millions of years to re-establish complexity.

But new research from the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard is rewriting that narrative.

Svalbard is a Norwegian archipelago between mainland Norway and the North Pole. One of the world’s northernmost inhabited areas, it's known for its rugged, remote terrain of glaciers and frozen tundra sheltering polar bears, Svalbard reindeer and Arctic foxes. 

It's a place close to my heart as a lover of cold, rugged landscapes and tasty fossils. We've been excavating Jurassic and Triassic marine reptile skeletons here since the early 2000s. 

It is a brutal place to do fieldwork, but the results are worth it, as Aubrey J. Roberts and team (and others) have discovered. The frozen tundra hides the answers to mysteries millions of years in the making.

A study led by Roberts and colleagues reveals a remarkable fossil treasure: a condensed bone bed on the island of Spitsbergen that captures an entire marine ecosystem only ~3 million years after the cataclysmic event. 

Rather than a slow, cautious re-entry into marine ecosystems, vertebrates appear to have surged back in a series of rapid evolutionary radiations—filling ecological niches far sooner than anyone expected.

A Fossil Window Into Early Triassic Seas

The newly described site dates to the early Spathian stage of the Early Triassic (~249 Ma), a time when Earth was still recovering from its worst biological crisis. Yet the bone bed tells a story of surprising ecological richness.

This ecosystem hosted:

• Apex predator ichthyosaurians — large, streamlined marine reptiles at the top of the food chain.
• Small-bodied ichthyopterygians — early relatives of ichthyosaurs, nimble hunters of smaller prey.
• Durophagous ichthyosauriforms — animals with crushing teeth adapted to hard-shelled prey.
• Semiaquatic archosauromorphs — early representatives of a group that later gave rise to crocodiles, dinosaurs, and birds.
• Euryhaline temnospondyls — amphibians comfortable in both fresh and salt water.
• Coelacanths and lungfish — living fossils of a lineage stretching back hundreds of millions of years.
• Ray-finned fish and sharks — the ever-present backbone of marine food webs.

Ichthyosaur Bone Bed

Taken together, these species formed an unexpectedly complex trophic network, one far more diverse and structured than previously assumed for such an early recovery interval.

We had once imagined a slow buildup of post-extinction ecosystems—simple communities giving way to more complex ones as time allowed evolutionary innovation. 

But the Svalbard bone bed challenges this view.

Diversity analyses by Roberts et al. show that heterogeneous marine vertebrate communities were already present by the late-earliest Triassic (Dienerian–Smithian, ~251 Ma).

These fully variegated tetrapod niches were re-established by ~3 million years after the extinction. Meaning vertebrates rebounded quickly, diversifying explosively into vacant ecological spaces left behind by the crisis. The recovery was not slow and linear—it was dynamic, fast, and opportunistic.

The discovery suggests that the complexification of marine ecosystems occurred through rapid radiations, not gradual, stepwise escalation. This is a new vision of our post-extinction oceans.

Picture the Early Triassic seas of Spitsbergen: warm, oxygen-stressed waters swirling with predators and prey, from sleek ichthyosaurs to ancient coelacanths. Against a backdrop of environmental turmoil, these animals built ecosystems every bit as intricate as the ones that existed before the extinction.

The implications reach far beyond Svalbard. They reshape our understanding of how life rebounds from global crises, hinting at a resilience and evolutionary adaptability more powerful than previously imagined.

The world after the end-Permian extinction was bruised, battered, and biologically diminished—but not for long. Within a geological blink, vertebrates were back in force, pioneering new ways of life in oceans still recovering from near-total collapse.

Life, as ever, found a way.

Reference: Earliest oceanic tetrapod ecosystem reveals rapid complexification of Triassic marine communities. https://scim.ag/4i1IKqK

HUNTING HISTORY: RETRACING THE STEPS OF JURA JELETZKY ON BC'S WILD WEST COAST

Retracing the Steps of Paleontologist Jura (George) Jeletzky on the Wild West Coast of Vancouver Island

We hiked in under the hush of coastal rainforest, the air thick with cedar and ocean mist, following a faint trail that wound toward the outer edge of Vancouver Island. 

Out here, the Pacific breathes against the cliffs with the same steady rhythm it has kept for millions of years. 

We were searching for a quiet relic tucked into this wild place—a weathered cabin where the palaeontologist Jurij Alexandrovich Jeletzky once worked, thought, and dreamed.

The cabin appeared like a ghost of scholarship between the salal and wind-twisted spruce. Its timbers sagged under decades of salt and rain, yet stepping inside felt like stepping into Jeletzky’s mind. 

On a rough-hewn shelf lay some of his original reading materials, their pages soft with age. Scattered across the floorboards, half-buried in the dust of time, were fragments of pottery, old jugs, and small utilitarian objects—humble reminders of the years he lived and laboured in this remote place. 

These remnants, quiet as tide pools, carried the unmistakable gravity of a life devoted to understanding deep time.

Exploring the cabin and the fossiliferous exposures he once studied felt like paying homage not only to a scientist, but to a way of seeing the Earth.

Jurij Alexandrovich Jeletzky—Jura to his family and Russian friends, George to the English-speaking world—was born June 18, 1915, in Pensa, Russia. 

His early fascination with Earth history began along the banks of the Volga River, where he encountered the spectacular oil-tinted ammonites of the Upper Jurassic: Quenstedtoceras, Peltoceras, Kosmoceras, Cadoceras, and many others whose forms read like the calligraphy of ancient seas. That early inspiration shaped the trajectory of an extraordinary scientific life.

He graduated with honours from the State University at Kyiv in 1938, pursued graduate studies in palaeontology and stratigraphy, and earned his Candidate of Geological Sciences degree in 1941 for his work on Boreal Upper Cretaceous belemnites. 

Amid global upheaval, he married Tamara Fedorovna on the day Germany invaded the USSR. War scattered institutions, families, and futures—but through those years, Jeletzky held his family together, carried his notebooks across borders, and preserved the spark of his scientific purpose.

In 1948, he arrived in Canada and found in its vast geologic provinces a lifetime of work waiting to be done. 

He became a research scientist with the Geological Survey of Canada—a position he held until 1982—and began producing geological maps and stratigraphic studies across Vancouver Island and southern British Columbia. 

Later, in the remote expanses of the Yukon, he undertook one of the most ambitious field projects of his career: to locate the most continuous open-marine Upper Jurassic–Lower Cretaceous section in northwestern Canada. 

Jeletzky's Cabin hidden in the forest

For two decades, often travelling by canoe and on foot with only an Indigenous guide and cook, he documented the sequence layer by layer, fossil by fossil, building a framework that would anchor Canadian Mesozoic geology for generations.

Jeletzky published nearly 150 papers, his work spanning Cretaceous stratigraphy, Buchia biostratigraphy, ammonoid systematics, and the evolutionary story of the Mesozoic coleoids—especially belemnites, the very fossils that launched his career. 

His meticulous approach and vast multilingual scholarship made him the world’s leading authority on fossil coleoids, entrusted with authoring the Coleoidea volume of the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology. From comparative morphology to biochronology, his insights shaped scientific thought across paleontology, tectonics, and palaeogeography.

His honours were many: Fellow of both the Geological Society of America and the Royal Society of Canada, recipient of the Willet G. Miller Medal and the Elkanah Billings Medal, and co-honoree—alongside Ralph Imlay—of a special symposium on Jurassic–Cretaceous palaeogeography at the 1982 North American Paleontological Convention.

Yet what colleagues remembered most was not the scale of his output, but the integrity of his science. Jeletzky challenged popular hypotheses when his data differed; he believed deeply that the paleontologist’s first loyalty is to evidence. 

He questioned prevailing views on Cordilleran geosynclines, criticised the overuse of quantification in palaeontology, evaluated the limits of eustasy, and defended the biostratigraphic power of molluscs even as new tools rose to prominence. 

His independence of mind—never pompous, always principled—became part of his legacy.

Even as illness overtook him in the 1980s, he continued to work with unwavering determination. His final weeks were spent editing proofs from a hospital bed, closing intellectual circles that began decades before along the Volga. 

He passed away on December 4, 1988, leaving manuscripts nearly complete, ideas still unfolding, and a scientific community deeply in his debt.

Those who knew him spoke of his kindness, his generosity to younger colleagues, and his unbroken love of life despite hardship. To them, Jeletzky embodied the principles that define a meaningful scientific life: freedom of thought, respect for evidence, and steadfast dedication to truth.

Standing in his small cabin on Vancouver Island, the rafters whispering with Pacific wind, we felt the presence of a mind that spent its life listening—listening to rocks, to ancient oceans, to the long and patient story of Earth. Every fossil we touched along the coastal cliffs seemed, in some way, to echo his work.

Jurij (George) Jeletzky will forever remain a guiding light to those who walk the shorelines, cliffs, and riverbanks of deep time—those who believe that the past is worth reading with care, curiosity, and courage.

TRACKING DIATRYMA: FOSSIL FOOTPRINTS IN THE CHUCKANUT FORMATION

Diatryma Restoration & Size Comparison

Long before glaciers sculpted the familiar ridges and waterways of western Washington, a vast subtropical delta sprawled across the region that would one day become Bellingham Bay. 

Arriving today, you see evidence of this in the many fossils to be found in the region. 

Beneath today’s scenic Chuckanut Drive lies a story written in stone — layer upon layer of siltstone, sandstone, mudstone, and conglomerate that make up the Chuckanut Formation, a fossil-rich archive of ancient swamps and floodplains.

Imagine stepping into that Eocene world. The air is heavy with humidity, thick with the scent of wet earth and resin. Towering dawn redwoods (Metasequoia) rise above a dense understorey of ferns, laurels, and figs. 

Glyptostrobus, the Chinese swamp cypress, forms stands along the riverbanks, its knees jutting from the warm, tea-colored water. 

Palms sway beside oxbow lakes where turtles and crocodilians bask on fallen logs. The landscape would look more at home in modern-day Louisiana or Belize than in the shadow of the North Cascades.

Diatryma Tracks, Washington State

The geology that preserves this lush world was born of fire, flood, and shifting plates. 

During the Eocene, the Pacific Northwest lay near the edge of the North American Plate, where fragments of volcanic island arcs — the terranes that make up much of western Washington — were accreting, colliding, and buckling under tectonic pressure. 

Rivers carried eroded sediments from the rising ancestral Cascades into broad, lowland deltas, where they built up thick beds of sand and mud. Over millions of years, those sediments hardened into rock, entombing the life that once flourished there.

Among the most remarkable of the Chuckanut fossils are footprints — delicate, fleeting impressions that speak to the creatures that wandered through this swampy paradise. One of these was Diatryma, Gastornis, a colossal flightless bird that could reach nearly nine feet tall. 

With massive legs and a deep, powerful beak, Diatryma was a relic of an ancient avian lineage that arose soon after the age of dinosaurs. They would have been most impressive to see, though they would likely chase you down for a wee taste! 

Gastornis giganteus

Descended from earlier ground-dwelling birds of the Paleocene, Diatryma and its kin once roamed both North America and Europe, their fossils turning up from Wyoming to France. 

Though once imagined as fearsome predators, new evidence suggests they were likely omnivores or even herbivores, using their beaks to crack seeds, fruits, or tough vegetation.

Diatryma shared the Eocene floodplains with a cast of strange and wonderful mammals. There were Pantodonts and Dinoceratans — heavy-bodied, blunt-footed herbivores with a primitive charm, precursors to later hoofed mammals. 

Small early horses trotted through the marshy margins, while shorebirds and amphibians left fleeting traces in the soft mud. Above it all, ancient dragonflies and early bats flitted through the dense canopy.

The Chuckanut Formation preserves this bygone world in exquisite detail — not as bones and teeth, but as fossil leaves, tracks, and impressions, the whispers of a time when Washington was a tropical delta at the edge of a newborn continent. 

Today, when you drive along Chuckanut’s winding road or hike its rocky bluffs, you are traveling through the ghost of an Eocene bayou — a landscape alive with the echoes of towering trees, swamp-dwelling beasts, and the thunderous stride of the mighty Diatryma.

Image Credit: Lead Image By Tim Bertelink - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49203812 edited by Fossil Huntress

Image Credit: Diatryma Restoration and Size Comparison: Gastornis giganteus: By Vince Smith from London, United Kingdom - Diatryma, a large flightless bird from the Eocene of WyomingUploaded by FunkMonk, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28298676

ECHOES IN STONE: WASHINGTON GEOLOGY

Washington State Forest

Two hundred million years ago, what we now call Washington wasn’t Washington at all. 

It was two drifting islands — fragments of a wandering continent slowly inching their way west across the ancient ocean. 

They were vagabonds, carried on tectonic currents until, at last, they collided with the North American continent and made themselves at home.

That restless motion has never stopped. The land still breathes — slow, tectonic breaths that subtly reshape the surface of the Pacific Northwest. Every so often, that breath shudders. 

We feel it in an earthquake, a reminder that the forces that built the land are still at work, deep below our feet. The great plates grind and twist, pushing mountains skyward and sliding California ever so slightly toward the North Pole. Hello, Baja-BC.

It’s this long, dynamic dance — the great continental waltz — that sculpted the ridges, folded valleys, and mountain walls we see today. And it’s also what preserved an ancient world beneath our boots: the subtropical swamps and deltas of the Chuckanut Formation, a geological tapestry stretching some 3,000 metres thick along Chuckanut Drive near Bellingham.

Islands Riding Tectonic Plates

Layer upon layer of sandstone, siltstone, mudstone, and conglomerate record the rhythms of rivers that once coursed through a lush, steaming delta. The lower strata date back roughly 56 million years, at the very end of the Paleocene. 

The upper layers push into the early Eocene, a time when Earth was warmer and wetter than it has been since. Imagine, if you can, not the misty evergreens and glacial peaks of today, but a subtropical floodplain, dense with palms, ferns, and broad-leaved trees. 

Picture the bayou country of the Lower Mississippi, but stretching across what is now the Pacific Northwest.

This was a land of life. Ancient trees towered overhead. Vines tangled in the swamp air. The Chuckanut flora tells us of a greenhouse Earth — plants whose modern cousins thrive in Central America and southern Mexico flourished here, under the same sun that today glints off Mount Baker’s glaciers. 

Every fallen branch, every leaf buried in fine silt became part of the rock record, sealing in the whispers of an ancient climate: its humidity, rainfall, and heat.

But the plants are only part of the story. In rare and beautiful moments, the Chuckanut Formation captures motion — the fleeting steps of animals caught forever in stone. These are the Sumas Eocene trackways, discovered after landslides near Sumas in 2009. 

The Ancient Bayou of Washington State 

Among them are footprints from small shorebirds, the imprints of early equids, and tracks of curious, blunt-footed herbivores belonging to the now-extinct Orders Pantodonta and Dinocerata. 

Together, they sketch a portrait of life 50 million years ago: herds and flocks wandering the muddy margins of rivers, where soft sediment briefly held their weight before drying, hardening, and turning to stone.

One of the most striking finds is that of a delicate shorebird trackway, each print barely larger than a thumbprint, pressed into what was once the bank of a lazy river. 

It’s joined by faint impressions from an early horse-like mammal and, in other sites such as Racehorse Creek, the formidable three-toed stamp of Diatryma — a flightless bird taller than a man, and every bit as formidable as its dinosaurian cousins.

These fossil trackways are precious not just for their rarity but for what they reveal: a moment of life, caught mid-step. Unlike bones, which tell us who lived here, tracks tell us how they lived — where they walked, how they moved, even how they interacted. They are the fossilized choreography of an ancient ecosystem, preserved in mud and time.

Mt. Baker, Washington

These traces are studied and safeguarded by researchers such as George Mustoe and his colleagues, who carefully collected the Sumas trackways and brought them to the Burke Museum in Seattle. 

There, under controlled light and the quiet reverence of display cases, visitors can stand face-to-face with the footprints of creatures that trod the Pacific Northwest long before the Cascades rose above the horizon.

The landscape along Chuckanut Drive may look serene now — the sandstone cliffs honeycombed by ferns, the sea glittering beyond. 

But beneath every weathered ledge and outcrop lies a record of turbulence and transformation: continents colliding, mountains rising, rivers changing course, and life adapting in the wake.

This is land that is now forests and tides, but was once swamps and subtropical rain. The fossils remind us that the ground beneath us has always been moving, always changing, and always keeping its secrets — until the rock, split open by time or by curiosity, whispers them back into the light.