A MASSIVE AMMONITE THE SIZE OF A CAR: THE FERNIE AMMONITE

Titanites occidentalis, Fernie Ammonite

The Fernie ammonite—long known as Titanites occidentalis—has officially been given a new name: Corbinites occidentalis, a fresh genus erected after a meticulous re-evaluation of this Western Giant’s anatomy and lineage. 

What hasn’t changed is its breathtaking presence high on Coal Mountain near Fernie, British Columbia, where this colossal cephalopod has rested for roughly 150 million years.

This extraordinary fossil belongs to the family Lithacoceratinae within the ataxioceratid ammonites. 

Once thought to be a close cousin of the great Titanites of Dorset, new material—including two additional large specimens discovered at nearby mine sites—reveals ribbing patterns and growth-stage features that simply didn’t match Titanites. 

With these multiple overlapping growth stages finally available, paleontologists had the missing pieces needed to correct its identity.

So, Titanites occidentalis no more—meet Corbinites occidentalis, a giant ammonite likely endemic to the relatively isolated early Alberta foreland basin of the Late Jurassic.

Fernie, British Columbia, Canada

The Fernie ammonite is a carnivorous cephalopod from the latest Jurassic (Tithonian). 

The spectacular individual on Coal Mountain measures 1.4 metres across—about the size of a small car tire and absolutely staggering when you first see it hugged by the mountainside.

The first specimen, discovered in 1947 by a British Columbia Geophysical Society mapping team at Coal Creek, was initially mistaken for a “fossil truck tire.” 

Fair enough—if a truck tire had been forged in the Jurassic and left on a mountaintop. It was later described by GSC paleontologist Hans Frebold, who gave it the name Titanites occidentalis, inspired by the giant ammonites of Dorset. 

For decades, that name stuck, even though paleontologists suspected the attribution was shaky due to poor preservation of the holotype’s inner whorls.

Recent discoveries of two additional specimens at Teck Resources’ Coal Mountain Mine finally provided the evidence needed for reassessment. 

With intact inner whorls and beautifully preserved ribbing—including hallmark variocostate and ataxioceratoid ornamentation—researchers Terence P. Poulton and colleagues demonstrated that the Canadian ammonite does not belong in Titanites. 

Their work (Volumina Jurassica, 2023) established Corbinites as a brand-new genus, with C. occidentalis as its type and only known species.

These specimens—one exceeding a metre, another about 64 cm—confirm a resident ammonite population within this basin. And as of now, these giants are unique to Western Canada.

A Journey Up Coal Mountain

If you’re keen to meet Corbinites occidentalis in the wild, you’ll want to head to Fernie, in southeastern British Columbia, close to the Alberta border. 

As your feet move up the hillside, you can imagine this land 10,000 years ago, rising above great glaciers. Where footfalls trace the steps of those that came before you. This land has been home to the Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi ‘it First Nation and Ktunaxa or Kukin ʔamakis First Nations whose oral history have them living here since time immemorial. Like them, take only what you need and no more than the land offers — packing out anything that you packed in. 

Active logging in the area since 2021 means that older directions are now unreliable—trailheads have shifted, and a fair bit of bushwhacking is the price of admission. Though clear-cutting reshaped the slope, loggers at CanWel showed admirable restraint: they worked around the fossil, leaving it untouched.

The non-profit Wildsight has been championing efforts to protect the ammonite, hoping to establish an educational trail with provincial support and possible inclusion under the Heritage Conservation Act—where the fossil’s stewardship could be formally recognised.

HIKING TO THE FERNIE AMMONITE (IMPORTANT UPDATE: TRAIL CLOSED)

From the town of Fernie, British Columbia, you would traditionally head east along Coal Creek Road toward Coal Creek, with the ammonite site sitting 3.81 km from the road’s base as the crow flies. 

The classic approach begins at a roadside exposure of dark grey to black Cretaceous plant fossils, followed by a creek crossing and a steep, bushwhacking ascent.

However — and this is critical — the trail is currently closed.

The entire access route runs straight through an area of active logging, and conditions on the slope are extremely dangerous. Between heavy equipment, unstable cutblocks, and altered drainages, this is not a safe place for hikers right now.

Conservation groups, including Wildsight, continue working toward restoring safe public access and formalising the site under the Heritage Conservation Act. 

Their long-term goal is to reopen the trail as a designated educational hike with proper signage, but at present, the route should not be attempted. 

Once logging operations move out of the area and safety assessments are done, the possibility of reopening may return.

For now, the safest—and strongly recommended—way to view this iconic fossil is via the excellent cast on display at the Courtenay & District Museum on Vancouver Island, or at the Visitor Information Centre in Sparwood.

Photo credit: Vince Mo Media. Vince is an awesome photographer and drone operator based in Fernie, BC. Check out his work (and hire him!) by visiting his website at vmmedia.ca.

BEARDED SEALS OF SVALBARD

The Bearded Seal

Bartrobbe — the bearded seal (Erignathus barbatus) — is a familiar and charismatic presence in the high Arctic waters surrounding Svalbard, Norway. 

Large, solitary, and unmistakable with its luxuriant moustache of stiff vibrissae, this species is superbly adapted to life along the drifting margins of sea ice. 

Adults can exceed 400 kilograms in mass, with thick blubber for insulation and broad, flexible foreflippers that allow them to haul out on ice floes or shallow shorelines with surprising ease.

Bearded seals are benthic specialists. Rather than chasing fast-moving prey in the water column, they forage along the seafloor, using their extraordinarily sensitive whiskers to detect vibrations and textures in soft sediments. 

Their diet reflects this lifestyle and includes clams, mussels, polychaete worms, crabs, shrimp, snails, and demersal fishes such as sculpins and flatfish. Powerful suction feeding allows them to extract prey directly from shells or sediment, leaving distinctive feeding pits on the seabed—clear signatures of their presence even when the seals themselves are out of sight.

The Bearded Seal

Unlike many other pinnipeds, bearded seals are not strongly colonial. Outside of the breeding season they are largely solitary, loosely distributed across ice-covered continental shelves. 

Mating occurs in spring, typically from April to May, when males establish underwater display areas rather than surface territories. 

Courtship is acoustic: males produce long, haunting trills and sweeping calls beneath the ice, audible over kilometres, to attract receptive females. 

After mating, implantation of the embryo is delayed, a reproductive strategy shared with many seals, resulting in a total gestation of roughly 11 months. 

Pups are born the following spring on drifting sea ice and are remarkably precocial, entering the water within hours and weaned after only two to three weeks—one of the shortest lactation periods among seals.

In the fossil record, bearded seals belong to the family Phocidae, a lineage that diversified during the Miocene as cold-adapted marine ecosystems expanded in the Northern Hemisphere. 

While Erignathus barbatus itself does not appear as a clearly identifiable species until the late Pleistocene, its ancestry is represented by fossil phocids from Miocene and Pliocene deposits across the North Atlantic and Arctic margins. 

Fragmentary remains—skulls, mandibles, and limb bones—document the emergence of large, bottom-feeding seals adapted to shallow continental shelves, particularly in regions influenced by cooling climates and seasonal ice. 

Pleistocene deposits in northern Europe, Siberia, Alaska, and Arctic Canada contain remains attributable to Erignathus, telling us that bearded seals expanded their range alongside advancing ice sheets during glacial cycles.

Today, Bartrobbe and its kin remain tightly bound to Arctic sea ice, making them sensitive indicators of environmental change. Their long evolutionary history, traced through shifting climates and frozen seas, underscores just how finely tuned they are to the rhythms of ice, sound, and sediment in the polar oceans—a living echo of the Arctic’s deep past.

FRACTAL BUILDING: AMMONITES

Argonauticeras besairei, Collection of José Juárez Ruiz.

An exceptional example of fractal building of an ammonite septum, in this clytoceratid Argonauticeras besairei from the awesome José Juárez Ruiz.

Ammonites were predatory, squid-like creatures that lived inside coil-shaped shells.

Like other cephalopods, ammonites had sharp, beak-like jaws inside a ring of squid-like tentacles that extended from their shells. They used these tentacles to snare prey, — plankton, vegetation, fish and crustaceans — similar to the way a squid or octopus hunt today.

Catching a fish with your hands is no easy feat, as I'm sure you know. But the Ammonites were skilled and successful hunters. They caught their prey while swimming and floating in the water column. Within their shells, they had a number of chambers, called septa, filled with gas or fluid that were interconnected by a wee air tube. By pushing air in or out, they were able to control their buoyancy in the water column.

They lived in the last chamber of their shells, continuously building new shell material as they grew. As each new chamber was added, the squid-like body of the ammonite would move down to occupy the final outside chamber.

They were a group of extinct marine mollusc animals in the subclass Ammonoidea of the class Cephalopoda. These molluscs, commonly referred to as ammonites, are more closely related to living coleoids — octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish) than they are to shelled nautiloids such as the living Nautilus species.

The Ammonoidea can be divided into six orders:

• Agoniatitida, Lower Devonian - Middle Devonian
• Clymeniida, Upper Devonian
• Goniatitida, Middle Devonian - Upper Permian
• Prolecanitida, Upper Devonian - Upper Triassic
• Ceratitida, Upper Permian - Upper Triassic
• Ammonitida, Lower Jurassic - Upper Cretaceous

Ammonites have intricate and complex patterns on their shells called sutures. The suture patterns differ across species and tell us what time period the ammonite is from. If they are geometric with numerous undivided lobes and saddles and eight lobes around the conch, we refer to their pattern as goniatitic, a characteristic of Paleozoic ammonites.

If they are ceratitic with lobes that have subdivided tips; giving them a saw-toothed appearance and rounded undivided saddles, they are likely Triassic. For some lovely Triassic ammonites, take a look at the specimens that come out of Hallstatt, Austria and from the outcrops in the Humboldt Mountains of Nevada.

Hoplites bennettiana (Sowby, 1826).

If they have lobes and saddles that are fluted, with rounded subdivisions instead of saw-toothed, they are likely Jurassic or Cretaceous. If you'd like to see a particularly beautiful Lower Jurassic ammonite, take a peek at Apodoceras. Wonderful ridging in that species.

One of my favourite Cretaceous ammonites is the ammonite, Hoplites bennettiana (Sowby, 1826). This beauty is from Albian deposits near Carrière de Courcelles, Villemoyenne, near la région de Troyes (Aube) Champagne in northeastern France.

At the time that this fellow was swimming in our oceans, ankylosaurs were strolling about Mongolia and stomping through the foliage in Utah, Kansas and Texas. Bony fish were swimming over what would become the strata making up Canada, the Czech Republic and Australia. Cartilaginous fish were prowling the western interior seaway of North America and a strange extinct herbivorous mammal, Eobaatar, was snuffling through Mongolia, Spain and England.

In some classifications, these are left as suborders, included in only three orders: Goniatitida, Ceratitida, and Ammonitida. Once you get to know them, ammonites in their various shapes and suturing patterns make it much easier to date an ammonite and the rock formation where is was found at a glance.

Ammonites first appeared about 240 million years ago, though they descended from straight-shelled cephalopods called bacrites that date back to the Devonian, about 415 million years ago, and the last species vanished in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.

They were prolific breeders that evolved rapidly. If you could cast a fishing line into our ancient seas, it is likely that you would hook an ammonite, not a fish. They were prolific back in the day, living (and sometimes dying) in schools in oceans around the globe. We find ammonite fossils (and plenty of them) in sedimentary rock from all over the world.

In some cases, we find rock beds where we can see evidence of a new species that evolved, lived and died out in such a short time span that we can walk through time, following the course of evolution using ammonites as a window into the past.

For this reason, they make excellent index fossils. An index fossil is a species that allows us to link a particular rock formation, layered in time with a particular species or genus found there. Generally, deeper is older, so we use the sedimentary layers rock to match up to specific geologic time periods, rather the way we use tree-rings to date trees. A handy way to compare fossils and date strata across the globe.

References: Inoue, S., Kondo, S. Suture pattern formation in ammonites and the unknown rear mantle structure. Sci Rep 6, 33689 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep33689
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep33689?fbclid=IwAR1BhBrDqhv8LDjqF60EXdfLR7wPE4zDivwGORTUEgCd2GghD5W7KOfg6Co#citeas

Photo: Hoplites Bennettiana from near Troyes, France. Collection de Christophe Marot

TEMNODONTOSAURUS CRASSIMANUS

Temnodontosaurus crassimanus

Meet Temnodontosaurus crassimanus — the sea monster that looked like someone asked nature to weld a dolphin to a speed-boat and then crank the dial to “chaos.” 

This big Jurassic unit was patrolling the ancient oceans some 180 million years ago, back when Britain was less tea-and-crumpets and more sharks, ammonites, and unsupervised evolutionary experimentation.

Our lad here carries a rather posh pedigree. Temnodontosaurus crassimanus was first named by none other than Sir Richard “Coined-the-Word-Dinosaur” Owen — the Victorian gentleman naturalist, master of self-promotion, and inaugural superintendent of what would become the Natural History Museum in London. 

Owen had a long habit of tussling with ideas and people (poor Darwin), but to his credit, the man knew a good fossil when he saw one. And this brute was a standout.

Fast-forward a century and a bit and the ever-industrious Dean Lomax (palaeontologist, author, and Yorkshire’s own fossil whisperer) rolled up to study this celebrity specimen as part of his research leading into his PhD. When future palaeontologists write the social history of ichthyosaur fandom, Lomax will certainly get his own chapter. He's a boy about town in a vocation filled with dusty fossil filled cases and muddy field work.

So, is Temnodontosaurus crassimanus a big deal? Yeppers. The Yorkshire specimen isn’t just a Temnodontosaurus. He’s the Temnodontosaurus. The Type Specimen. The gold standard. The reference fossil. The one all wannabes must measure up to before they earn the name. If ichthyosaur taxonomy were a Regency romance, this fellow is the Duke of Diagnostic Features. Everyone else gets compared to him.

He lives today in respectable comfort at the Yorkshire Museum, a stately resident amid ammonites, plesiosaurs, and other Jurassic goodies. 

But his road to fame was… inelegant.

Back in 1857, workmen quarrying alum shale near Whitby on the North Yorkshire coast started turning up chunks of gigantic reptile bones. No one blinked an eye at digging giant holes into cliffs (Victorian industry was chaos incarnate), but thirty-foot prehistoric reptiles were another matter. 

Word got passed up the chain of command, and eventually Sir Richard Owen himself was summoned, presumably with much whisker-stroking and Latin.

Recovering the fossil was a scene straight out of an industrial novel. More than fifty slabs. Massive shale blocks. Quarry operations thundering around. Men shouting. Someone trying not to drop a vertebra the size of a teapot. 

All while alum production hummed away — an industry that had made Yorkshire indispensable to the textile world since the 1500s. Synthetic chemistry ultimately doomed the trade; by the 1860s it was sputtering, and by 1871 it was gone entirely. But in those twilight years, the alum quarries gifted paleontology an eight-metre aquatic missile — one of the largest ichthyosaurs ever discovered in the UK.

Not a bad parting present, really.

Today we look at Temnodontosaurus and think sleek marine super-predator — a creature built for speed, crushing jaws, and a diet that likely included belemnites, fish, and anything else foolish enough to loom into view. 

But in the early 1800s, these beasts were still rewriting natural history. Mary Anning’s discoveries at Lyme Regis had upended old ideas, and ichthyosaurs became one of the first fossil groups to teach Victorian Britain that extinction was real and the Earth had been home to worlds utterly unlike our own.

So, should you happen by the museum to take a gander at that big Yorkshire slab of Jurassic muscle, give him a little nod. He survived catastrophic oceans, industrial quarrying, and the politics of Victorian science — and still looks fabulous for it.

Paleo-coordinates: 54.5° N, 0.6° W: paleocoordinates 42.4° N, 9.3° E

FOSSIL DOLPHIN VERTEBRAE FROM THE NORTH SEA

Dolphin Fossil Vertebrae

Pulled from the cold, turbid bottom of the North Sea, a fossil dolphin vertebra is a small but eloquent survivor of a very different ocean. 

Today, the North Sea is shallow, busy, and heavily worked by trawlers, dredges, and offshore infrastructure. Beneath that modern churn lies a remarkable archive of Cenozoic life, quietly releasing its fossils when nets and dredges scrape sediments that have not seen daylight for millions of years.

Fossil cetacean bones—vertebrae, ribs, mandibles, and the occasional ear bone—are among the most evocative finds recovered from the seafloor. 

Dolphin vertebrae are especially common compared to skulls, as their dense, spool-shaped centra survive transport and burial better than more delicate skeletal elements. 

These fossils are typically dark brown to black, stained by long exposure to iron-rich sediments and phosphates, and often bear the polished surfaces and rounded edges that speak to a history of reworking by currents before final burial.

The North Sea is famous for yielding a mixed assemblage of fossils spanning multiple ice ages and interglacial periods, but many marine mammal remains originate from Miocene deposits, roughly 23 to 5 million years old. During the Miocene, this region was not the marginal, shallow sea we know today. It formed part of a broad, warm to temperate epicontinental sea connected to the Atlantic, rich in plankton, fish, sharks, and early whales and dolphins. 

This was a critical chapter in cetacean evolution, when modern groups of toothed whales, including early delphinids and their close relatives, were diversifying and refining the echolocation-based hunting strategies that define dolphins today.

Most North Sea cetacean fossils are found accidentally rather than through targeted excavation. Commercial fishing trawls, aggregate dredging for sand and gravel, and construction linked to wind farms and pipelines routinely disturb Miocene and Pliocene sediments. 

Fossils are hauled up tangled in nets or mixed with shell hash and glacial debris, often far from their original point of burial. As a result, precise stratigraphic context is usually lost, and age estimates rely on sediment still adhering to the bone, associated microfossils, or comparison with well-dated onshore Miocene marine deposits in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and eastern England.

A dolphin vertebra from this setting tells a story of both life and loss. In life, it was part of a flexible, powerful spine built for speed and agility, driving rapid tail beats through warm Miocene waters. 

After death, the carcass likely sank to the seafloor, where scavengers stripped it and currents scattered the bones. Over time, burial in sand and silt allowed mineral-rich waters to replace organic material with stone, locking the bone into the geological record. 

Much later, Ice Age glaciers reshaped the seafloor, reworking older sediments and concentrating fossils into lag deposits that modern dredges now disturb.

Though often found in isolation, these vertebrae are scientifically valuable. They confirm the long presence of dolphins in northern European seas and help refine our understanding of Miocene marine ecosystems, biogeography, and climate.

FOSSIL HUNTRESS PALEONTOLOGY PODCAST

Step into deep time with the Fossil Huntress Podcast—your warm and wonder-filled gateway to dinosaurs, trilobites, ammonites, and the astonishing parade of life that has ever walked, swum, or crawled across our planet.

Close your eyes and travel with me through ancient oceans teeming with early life, lush primeval forests echoing with strange calls, and sunbaked badlands where the bones of giants rest beneath your feet. 

Each episode is a journey into Earth’s secret past, where every fossil tells a story and every stone remembers.

Together, we’ll wander across extraordinary fossil beds, sacred landscapes, and timeworn shores that have witnessed the rise and fall of worlds. 

From tiny single-celled pioneers to mighty dinosaurs, from cataclysms to new dawns, this is where science meets storytelling—and where the past comes vividly alive.

So wherever you are—on the trail, by the sea, or cozy at home—bring your curiosity and join me in the great adventure of discovery. Favourite the show and come fossil-hunting through time with me!

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GARGOYLEOSAURUS: THE SPIKED GUARDIAN OF THE JURASSIC FOREST

Gargoyleosaurus by Daniel Eskridge

Step back into the lush forests of the Late Jurassic, about 155 million years ago, where ferns brushed the ankles of giants, and the air buzzed with the calls of ancient insects. 

In the shade of towering conifers, a low-slung, tank-like creature ambled through the undergrowth — Gargoyleosaurus parkpini, one of the earliest known ankylosaurs.

A quiet forest dweller but no easy meal, Gargoyleosaurus was proof that sometimes survival comes not from speed or strength, but from a good suit of armour.

Unlike its later Cretaceous cousins, Ankylosaurus and Euoplocephalus, this Jurassic pioneer was smaller and a little more lightly built — about 3 metres long and weighing as much as a cow. 

But don’t let that fool you: Gargoyleosaurus was well-defended. Its body was draped in thick, bony plates called osteoderms, and along its flanks ran sharp spikes that would make any hungry predator think twice. 

Its head bore a beaked snout perfect for cropping low-growing plants, and behind that, the skull was crowned with rugged armour that gave the dinosaur its gargoyle-like name.

Fossils of Gargoyleosaurus have been unearthed in Wyoming’s Morrison Formation — the same ancient landscape that hosted Stegosaurus, Allosaurus, and Diplodocus. Imagine this spiky herbivore moving slowly through the ferns while massive sauropods grazed nearby and the shadows of meat-eating theropods flickered between the trees.

As one of the oldest ankylosaurs in the fossil record, Gargoyleosaurus gives us a glimpse into the early evolution of these living fortresses. Its mix of primitive and advanced features — such as an early form of its armoured skull — hints at the experimentation nature was doing with defence long before the rise of the tail-club-wielding ankylosaurs of the Cretaceous.

WILD EQUINE BEAUTY: ICELANDIC HORSES

Icelandic Horses

These beauties are Icelandic horses who graced me with their energy and spirit for a series of feel-good photoshoots along the southern coast of Iceland earlier this month. 

The Icelandic horse is a living link to an ancient lineage—compact, sure-footed, and enduring as the land it calls home. 

Though today’s Icelandic horses are domesticated, their story begins millions of years earlier, deep in the fossil record of the horse family, Equidae.

Horses first evolved in North America around 55 million years ago during the Eocene epoch. The earliest known ancestor, Eohippus (also called Hyracotherium), was a small, forest-dwelling animal no larger than a fox. 

Over tens of millions of years, its descendants—Mesohippus, Merychippus, Pliohippus—grew larger and adapted to open grasslands, developing longer legs and single-toed hooves suited for running. 

Icelandic Horses

Fossils of these transitional species are found in abundance across the Great Plains of the United States and in the Miocene deposits of Nebraska and Wyoming.

By the late Pliocene, around three million years ago, horses crossed the Bering land bridge into Eurasia. The genus Equus—to which all modern horses, donkeys, and zebras belong—emerged and spread rapidly. 

Fossils of Equus ferus, the wild ancestor of the domestic horse, are found across Europe and Asia. Horses later vanished from North America during the Late Pleistocene extinctions about 10,000 years ago, only to return with humans during the Age of Exploration.

The Icelandic horse descends directly from the hardy Scandinavian ponies brought to Iceland by Norse settlers in the 9th and 10th centuries CE. Protected by the island’s isolation and a millennium of careful breeding, it retains many primitive features—thick coats, strong bones, and an extra gait known as the tölt. 

While the fossil record of Equus does not include fossils from Iceland itself—its geologic strata are too young for that—the genetic and morphological heritage of these small but mighty horses is a living testament to a 55-million-year evolutionary journey.

MIGWAT: SLEEK, PLAYFUL SEALS

Seals—those sleek, playful creatures that glide through our oceans and lounge on rocky shores—are part of a remarkable evolutionary story stretching back millions of years. 

Though we often see them today basking on beaches or popping their heads above the waves, their journey through the fossil record reveals a dramatic tale of land-to-sea adaptation and ancient global wanderings.

Seals belong to a group of marine mammals called pinnipeds, which also includes sea lions and walruses. All pinnipeds share a common ancestry with terrestrial carnivores, and their closest living relatives today are bears and mustelids (like otters and weasels). Their ancestors walked on land before evolving to thrive in marine environments.

The fossil record suggests that pinnipeds first emerged during the Oligocene epoch, around 33 to 23 million years ago. These early proto-seals likely lived along coastal environments, where they gradually adapted to life in the water. Over time, their limbs transformed into flippers, their bodies streamlined, and their reliance on the sea for food and movement became complete.

In Kwak'wala, the language of the Kwakwaka'wakw of the Pacific Northwest, seals are known as migwat, and fur seals are referred to as xa'wa.

ATURIA ANGUSTATA: MIOCENE NAUTILOID

Aturia angustata, Lower Miocene, WA

This lovely Lower Miocene nautiloid is Aturia angustata collected on the foreshore near Clallam Bay, Olympic Peninsula, northwestern Washington. 

Aturia is an extinct genus of Paleocene to Miocene nautiloid within Aturiidae, a monotypic family, established by Campman in 1857 for Aturia (Bronn, 1838), and is included in the superfamily Nautilaceae (Kümmel,  1964).

There are seven living nautiloid species in two genera: Nautilus pompilius, N. macromphalus, N. stenomphalus, N. belauensis, and the three new species being described from Samoa, Fiji, and Vanuatu (Ward et al.). 

We have specimens of fossil nautiloids dating to the Turonian of California, and possibly the Cenomanian of Australia. There has also been a discovery of what might be the only known fossil of Allonautilus (Ward and Saunders, 1997), from the Nanaimo Group of British Columbia, Canada.

Aturia in the Collection of Rick Ross, VIPS

The exquisite shell preservation of many Nanaimo nautilids has opened up a lens into paleotemperatures and accurate Nitrogen isotope analyses. 

Nautilus and all other known Cretaceous through Paleogene nautiloids were shallow water carnivores. We may see their shells as beautiful bits of art and science today, but they were seen in our ancient oceans as small yet mighty predators. Preferring to dine on shrimp, crab, fish and on occasion, a friendly cousin nautiloid to two.

Aturia lived in cooler water in the Cenozoic, preferring it over the warmer waters chosen by their cousins. Aturia, are commonly found as fossils from Eocene and Miocene outcrops. 

That record ends with their extinction in the late Miocene. This was a fierce little beast with jaws packed with piranha-like teeth. They grew at least twice that of the largest known Nautilus living today. 

Aturia is characterized by a smooth, highly involute, discoidal shell with a complex suture and subdorsal siphuncle. The shell of Aturia is rounded ventrally and flattened laterally; the dorsum is deeply impressed. The suture is one of the most complex within the subclass Nautiloidea. Of all the nautiloids, he may have been able to go deeper than his brethren.

Nautiloids are known for their simple suturing in comparison to their ammonite cousins. This simplicity of design limited their abilities in terms of withstanding the water pressure experienced when several atmospheres below the sea. Nautiloids were not able to compete with their ammonite cousins in this regard. 

Instead of elaborate and complex sutures capable of withstanding the pressures of the deep, nautiloids have simpler sutures that would have them enfold on themselves and crush at depth.  

Aturia angustata; Rick Ross Collection

It has a broad flattened ventral saddle, narrow pointed lateral lobes, broad rounded lateral saddles, broad lobes on the dorso-umbilical slopes, and a broad dorsal saddle divided by a deep, narrow median lobe. 

The siphuncle is moderate in size and located subdorsally in the adapical dorsal flexure of the septum. Based on the feeding and hunting behaviours of living nautiluses, Aturia most likely preyed upon small fish and crustaceans. 

I have found a few of these specimens along the beaches of Clallam Bay and nearby in a local clay quarry. I've also seen calcified and chalcedony — microcrystalline quartz — agatized beauties of this species collected from river sites within the Olympic Peninsula range. In the bottom photos, you can see Aturia from Washington state and one (on the stand on the left) from Oregon, USA. These beauties are in the collections of the deeply awesome Rick Ross, Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society.

References: Ward, P; Haggart, J; Ross, R; Trask, P; Beard, G; Nautilus and Allonautilus in the Nanaimo Group, and in the modern oceans; 12th British Columbia Paleontological Symposium, 2018, Courtenay, abstracts; 2018 p. 10-11

FOSSIL HUNTRESS PODCAST: DEAD SEXY SCIENCE

Geeky goodness from the Fossil Huntress. If you love paleontology, you will love this stream. Dinosaurs, trilobites, ammonites—you'll find them all here!

Close your eyes & fly with me as we head out together to explore Earth's rich history written in her rock. Travel to extraordinary places, sacred sites & unearth mysteries millions of years old on the Fossil Huntress Podcast.

This stream is for those who share an enduring passion for our world's hidden treasures, its wild places & want to uncover her beauty stone by stone.

This is the story of the making of our Earth and the many wonderful creatures who have called it home.

Join in the exploration of the fascinating science of paleontology — that lens that examines ancient animals, plants & ecosystems from wee single-celled organisms to big & mighty dinosaurs. Save the stream to your favorites to listen while you drive, head out fossil collecting or snuggle in for the night!

​To listen now, visit: https://open.spotify.com/show/1hH1wpDFFIlYC9ZW5uTYVL

FOSSIL HUNTRESS PODCAST: DEAD SEXY SCIENCE

Close your eyes & fly with me as we head out together to explore Earth's rich history written in her rock. Travel to extraordinary places, sacred sites & unearth mysteries millions of years old on the Fossil Huntress Podcast.

This stream is for those who share an enduring passion for our world's hidden treasures, its wild places & want to uncover her beauty stone by stone. This is the story of the making of our Earth and the many wonderful creatures who have called it home. 

Join in the exploration of the fascinating science of palaeontology — that lens that examines ancient animals, plants & ecosystems from wee single-celled organisms to big & mighty dinosaurs.

​Learn about the interwoven disciplines of natural history, ecology, geology, conservation & stewardship of our world. To listen to the stories of the Earth, visit: https://open.spotify.com/show/1hH1wpDFFIlYC9ZW5uTYVL

UNEARTHING FOSSIL BIRD BONES ON SOUTHERN VANCOUVER ISLAND

Stemec suntokum, a Fossil Plopterid from Sooke, BC

We all love the idea of discovering a new species—especially a fossil species lost to time. 

As romantic as it sounds, it happens more often than you think. 

I can think of more than a dozen new fossil species from my home province of British Columbia on Canada’s far western shores that have been named after people I know who have collected those specimens or contributed to their collection over the past 20 years. 

British Columbia, Canada, is a paleontological treasure trove, and one of its most rewarding spots is tucked away near the southwestern tip of Vancouver Island: the Sooke Formation along the rugged shores of Muir Beach.

A Beach Walk into Deep Time

Follow Highway 14 out of the town of Sooke, just west of Victoria, and you’ll soon find yourself staring at the cool, clear waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Step onto the gravel parking area near Muir Creek, and from there, walk right (west) along the beach. The low yellow-brown cliffs up ahead mark the outcrop of the upper Oligocene Sooke Formation, part of the larger Carmanah Group.

For collectors, families, and curious wanderers alike, this spot is a dream. On a sunny summer day, the sandstone cliffs glow under the warm light, and if you’re lucky enough to visit in the quieter seasons, there’s a certain magic in the mist and drizzle—just you, the crashing surf, and the silent secrets of a world long gone.

Geological Canvas of the Oligocene

The Sooke Formation is around 25 to 30 million years old (upper Oligocene), when ocean temperatures had cooled to levels not unlike those of today. That ancient shoreline supported many of the marine organisms we’d recognize in modern Pacific waters—gastropods, bivalves, echinoids, coral, chitons, and limpets. Occasionally, larger remains turn up: bones from marine mammals, cetaceans, and, in extremely rare instances, birds.

Beyond Birds: Other Fossil Treasures

The deposits in this region yield abundant fossil molluscs. Look carefully for whitish shell material in the grey sandstone boulders along the beach. You may come across Mytilus (mussels), barnacles, surf clams (Spisula, Macoma), or globular moon snails. Remember, though, to stay clear of the cliffs—collecting directly from them is unsafe and discouraged.

These same rock units have produced fossilized remains of ancient marine mammals. Among them are parts of desmostylids—chunky, herbivorous marine mammals from the Oligocene—and the remains of Chonecetus sookensis, a primitive baleen whale ancestor. There are even rumors of jaw sections from Kolponomos, a bear-like coastal carnivore from the early Miocene, found in older or nearby formations.

Surprisingly, avian fossils at this site do exist, though they’re few and far between. Which brings us to one of the most exciting paleontological stories on the island: the discovery of a flightless diving bird.

The Suntok Family’s Fortuitous Find

In 2013, while strolling the shoreline near Sooke, Steve Suntok and his family picked up what they suspected were fossilized bones. Their instincts told them these were special, so they brought the specimens to the Royal British Columbia Museum (RBCM) in Victoria.

Enter Gary Kaiser: a biologist by profession who, after retirement, turned his focus to avian paleontology. As a research associate with the RBCM, Kaiser examined the Suntoks’ finds and realized these were no ordinary bones. They were the coracoid of a 25-million-year-old flightless diving bird—a rare example of the extinct Plotopteridae. In honor of the region’s First Nations and the intrepid citizen scientists who found it, he named the new genus and species Stemec suntokum.

Meet the Plotopterids

Plotopterids once lived around the North Pacific from the late Eocene to the early Miocene. They employed wing-propelled diving much like modern penguins, “flying” through the water using robust, flipper-like wings. Fossils of these extinct birds are known from outcrops in the United States and Japan, where some specimens reached up to two meters in length.

The Sooke fossil, on the other hand, likely belonged to a much smaller individual—somewhere in the neighborhood of 50–65 cm long and 1.7–2.2 kg, about the size and weight of a small Magellanic Penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) chick. The key to identifying Stemec suntokum was its coracoid, a delicate shoulder bone that provides insight into how these birds powered their underwater movements.

From Penguin Waddle to Plotopterid Dive

If you’ve ever seen a penguin hopping near the ocean’s edge or porpoising through the water, you can imagine the locomotion of these ancient Plotopterids. The coracoid bone pivots as a bird flaps its wings, providing a hinge for the up-and-down stroke. Because avian bones are so delicate—often scavenged or destroyed by ocean currents before they can fossilize—finding such a beautifully preserved coracoid is a stroke of incredible luck.

Kaiser’s detailed observations on the coracoid of Stemec suntokum—notably its unusually narrow, conical shaft—sparked debate among avian paleontologists. You can read his paper, co-authoried with Junya Watanabe and Marji Johns, was published in Palaeontologia Electronica in November 2015. You can find the paper online at:

 https://palaeo-electronica.org/content/2015/1359-plotopterid-in-canada

The Suntok Legacy

It turns out the Suntok family’s bird discovery wasn’t their last remarkable find. Last year, they unearthed part of a fish dental plate that caught the attention of Russian researcher Evgeny Popov. He named it Canadodus suntoki (meaning “Tooth from Canada”), another nod to the family’s dedication as citizen scientists. 

While the name may not be as lyrical as Stemec suntokum, it underscores the continuing tradition of everyday fossil lovers making big contributions to science.

Planning Your Own Expedition

Location: From Sooke, drive along Highway 14 for about 14 km. Just after crossing Muir Creek, look for the gravel pull-out on the left. Park and walk down to the beach; turn right (west) and stroll about 400 meters toward the sandstone cliffs.

Tip: Check the tide tables and wear sturdy footwear or rubber boots. Fossils often appear as white flecks in the greyish rocks on the beach. A small hammer and chisel can help extract specimens from coquinas (shell-rich rock), but always use eye protection and respect the local environment.

Coordinates: 48.4°N, 123.9°W (modern), which corresponds to around 48.0°N, 115.0°W in Oligocene paleo-coordinates.

Why Head to Sooke? Pure Gorgeousness!

Whether you’re scanning the shoreline for ancient bird bones or simply soaking in the Pacific Northwest vistas, Muir Beach offers a blend of natural beauty and deep-time adventure. For many, the idea of unearthing a brand-new fossil species seems almost mythical. 

Yet the Suntok family’s story proves it can—and does—happen. With an appreciative eye, a sense of curiosity, and a willingness to learn, any of us could stumble upon the next chapter of Earth’s distant past.

So pack your boots, bring a hammer and some enthusiasm, and you just might find yourself holding a piece of ancient avian history—like Stemec suntokum—in your hands.

References & Further Reading

Clark, B.L. and Arnold, R. (1923). Fauna of the Sooke Formation, Vancouver Island, B.C. University of California Publications in Geological Sciences 14(6).

Hasegawa et al. (1979); Olson and Hasegawa (1979, 1996); Olson (1980); Kimura et al. (1998); Mayr (2005); Sakurai et al. (2008); Dyke et al. (2011).

Russell, L.S. (1968). A new cetacean from the Oligocene Sooke Formation of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, 5, 929–933.

Barnes, L.G. & Goedert, J.L. (1996). Marine vertebrate palaeontology on the Olympic Peninsula. Washington Geology, 24(3), 17–25.

Kaiser, G., Watanabe, J. & Johns, M. (2015). A new member of the family Plotopteridae (Aves) from the late Oligocene of British Columbia, Canada. Palaeontologia Electronica.

Howard, H. (1969). A new avian fossil from the Oligocene of California. Described Plotopterum joaquinensis.

Wetmore, A. (1928). Avian fossils from the Miocene and Pliocene of California.

MASSIVE AMMONITE FROM MADAGASCAR

This big beastie is a superb specimen of the ammonite Lobolytoceras costellatum showing the intricate fractal pattern of its septa. 

This lovely measures to a whopping 230 mm and hails from Oxfordian outcrops near Sakara, Madagascar. Lovingly prepped by the supremely talented José Juárez Ruiz.

Ammonites were predatory, squidlike creatures that lived inside coil-shaped shells. Like other cephalopods, ammonites had sharp, beak-like jaws inside a ring of squid-like tentacles that extended from their shells. They used these tentacles to snare prey — plankton, vegetation, fish and crustaceans — similar to the way a squid or octopus hunt today.

Catching a fish with your hands is no easy feat, as I'm sure you know. Ammonites did the equivalent, catching prey in their tentacles. They were skilled and successful hunters. They caught their prey while swimming and floating in the water column. 

Within their shells, they had a number of chambers, called septa, filled with gas or fluid that were interconnected by a wee air tube. By pushing air in or out, they were able to control their buoyancy in the water column.

They lived in the last chamber of their shells, continuously building new shell material as they grew. As each new chamber was added, the squid-like body of the ammonite would move down to occupy the final outside chamber.

They were a group of extinct marine mollusc animals in the subclass Ammonoidea of the class Cephalopoda. These molluscs, commonly referred to as ammonites, are more closely related to living coleoids — octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish) then they are to shelled nautiloids such as the living Nautilus species.

Ammonites have intricate and complex patterns on their shells called sutures. The suture patterns differ across species and tell us what time period the ammonite is from. If they are geometric with numerous undivided lobes and saddles and eight lobes around the conch, we refer to their pattern as goniatitic, a characteristic of Paleozoic ammonites.

Ammonites first appeared about 240 million years ago, though they descended from straight-shelled cephalopods called bacrites that date back to the Devonian, about 415 million years ago, and the last species vanished in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.

They were prolific breeders that evolved rapidly. If you could cast a fishing line into our ancient seas, it is likely that you would hook an ammonite, not a fish. They were prolific back in the day, living (and sometimes dying) in schools in oceans around the globe. We find ammonite fossils (and plenty of them) in sedimentary rock from all over the world.

In some cases, we find rock beds where we can see evidence of a new species that evolved, lived and died out in such a short time span that we can walk through time, following the course of evolution using ammonites as a window into the past.

For this reason, they make excellent index fossils. An index fossil is a species that allows us to link a particular rock formation, layered in time with a particular species or genus found there. Generally, deeper is older, so we use the sedimentary layers rock to match up to specific geologic time periods, rather the way we use tree-rings to date trees. A handy way to compare fossils and date strata across the globe.

BURGESS SHALE FOSSILS: A DEEP TIME JOURNEY IN YOHO NATIONAL PARK

Tucked high in the Canadian Rockies above the tiny hamlet of Field, British Columbia, lies one of the most extraordinary fossil sites on Earth — the Burgess Shale. 

This UNESCO World Heritage site offers a rare and detailed look at life on Earth over half a billion years ago, during a time known as the Cambrian Explosion.

Whether you're a seasoned paleontology buff or a curious traveler, this ancient treasure trove belongs on your bucket list. Here’s everything you need to know about the fossils, the tours, how to get there, where to stay, eat, and explore.

Why Are the Burgess Shale Fossils Important?

The fossils of the Burgess Shale are a paleontological jackpot. Dating back 508 million years, they preserve not just the hard shells and bones, but also the soft tissues of ancient creatures — things like gills, eyes, and guts. These rare details offer a vivid snapshot of life in the ancient Cambrian seas.

Discovered by Charles Doolittle Walcott in 1909, the Burgess Shale holds some of the earliest and weirdest animals to ever live on Earth — including:

• Anomalocaris – a top predator with grasping arms and a ring of teeth
• Opabinia – a creature with five eyes and a long, tube-like nose
• Hallucigenia – a spiny worm that once puzzled scientists with its upside-down anatomy
• Pikaia – one of the first known animals with a notochord, an early precursor to the backbone

These fossils help us understand the roots of animal evolution — including our own.

Guided Fossil Tours: Hike Through Deep Time

Yes — you can actually visit these ancient fossil beds! Parks Canada offers guided day hikes to several Burgess Shale sites during the summer months (late June to early September). All tours must be booked in advance and are mandatory to access these protected areas. You can take photos galore but cannot collect or keep any of the fossils. They are protected and their removal is illegal.

Book Your Guided Burgess Shale Hike

Here are the main hikes you can choose from:

1. Walcott Quarry Hike

• Difficulty: Challenging (22 km round trip, ~11 hrs)
• Highlights: Iconic fossil site, stunning mountain scenery, classic fossils
• Departs from: Takakkaw Falls parking lot, Yoho National Park

2. Mount Stephen Trilobite Beds

• Difficulty: Moderate (8 km round trip, ~6 hrs)
• Highlights: Ground covered in trilobites, panoramic views
• Departs from: Field Visitor Centre

3. Stanley Glacier Hike (Kootenay National Park)

• Difficulty: Moderate (10 km round trip, ~7 hrs)
• Highlights: Newer fossil site, unique specimens, stunning glaciers
• Departs from: Stanley Glacier Trailhead

Note: You’ll need good hiking shoes, layers for changing weather, plenty of water, and a spirit of adventure.

Where to Stay Near the Burgess Shale

Field, BC is the perfect home base for your fossil adventure. It’s quaint, quiet, and surrounded by jaw-dropping mountain beauty.

Top Places to Stay:

• Cathedral Mountain Lodge – Rustic luxury cabins, great food, stunning setting.
• Emerald Lake Lodge – A short drive away, this lakeside lodge is a slice of paradise.
• Guesthouses & B&Bs in Field – Charming, cozy options like The Great Divide Lodge and Fireweed Hostel.

Where to Eat in and Around Field

While Field is small, it packs a punch with local, hearty eats:

• Truffle Pigs Bistro – Field’s culinary gem. Comfort food with a gourmet twist.
• The Siding Café – Great for coffee, sandwiches, and baked goods. Cozy and casual.
• Cathedral Mountain Lodge Dining Room – Upscale Rocky Mountain dining if you’re staying at the lodge.

Tip: There’s no gas station in Field. Fill up in Lake Louise (30 minutes away).

How to Get to Field, British Columbia

Field is nestled in Yoho National Park, just off the Trans-Canada Highway. Here's how long it'll take you from major cities:

Driving Times to Field, BC

• From Vancouver: ~8.5 hours (850 km via Hwy 1 through Kamloops and Golden)
• From Calgary: ~2.5 hours (215 km via Hwy 1 through Banff and Lake Louise)

You’ll pass through some of the most scenic mountain corridors in North America. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for wildlife — mountain goats, bears, and elk often make an appearance.

A Lasting Legacy in Stone

Standing among the Burgess Shale beds, surrounded by towering peaks and the whispers of deep time, it’s hard not to feel humbled. These fossils tell the story of life’s earliest steps into complexity — a reminder of how strange, beautiful, and interconnected our world truly is.

Whether you're chasing trilobites or just soaking in the grandeur of Yoho’s landscapes, the Burgess Shale offers something extraordinary: a chance to walk with the ghosts of Earth’s earliest animals.

Learn More: (pop these in Google for more information)

• Parks Canada – Burgess Shale Official Site
• Royal Ontario Museum – Burgess Shale Project
• UNESCO World Heritage Info

I highly recommend all of these hikes. If you have the time and fitness, they are amazing and each of them offers some epic views!

ANCIENT SEA MONSTERS: ICHTHYOSAURS AND MOSASAURS

When we think of prehistoric creatures, dinosaurs usually steal the spotlight. But beneath the ancient waves swam giants just as awe-inspiring—and sometimes even more terrifying. 

Among these marine reptiles, two groups stand out: ichthyosaurs and mosasaurs. Though they never coexisted, both ruled the oceans in their own time and in their own terrifying ways.

Ichthyosaurs: Dolphin-Like Reptiles of the Jurassic

Ichthyosaurs (meaning "fish lizards") were sleek, fast swimmers that first appeared around 250 million years ago during the Triassic. 

Their streamlined bodies, long snouts, and large eyes gave them an appearance eerily similar to modern dolphins—though they weren’t mammals. This resemblance is a perfect example of convergent evolution, where unrelated animals develop similar traits to adapt to similar environments.

Some ichthyosaurs grew as long as a school bus, and their enormous eyes (some as large as dinner plates) suggest they were capable of deep-sea hunting. They fed on fish, squid, and other marine life, and some species likely gave birth to live young—a rare trait among reptiles.

They thrived for millions of years but began to decline in the mid-Cretaceous, eventually going extinct before the rise of mosasaurs.

Mosasaurs: Apex Predators of the Cretaceous Seas

Enter the mosasaurs, who rose to dominance after the ichthyosaurs were gone. Mosasaurs appeared around 98 million years ago and ruled the oceans until the mass extinction event 66 million years ago that also wiped out the dinosaurs.

These were true marine lizards, closely related to today’s monitor lizards and snakes. Picture a massive, crocodile-headed Komodo dragon with flippers and a shark-like tail—and you’ll have a good image of a mosasaur. Some species grew over 50 feet long, and their jaws were packed with conical, backward-curving teeth perfect for gripping slippery prey.

Mosasaurs were apex predators, eating anything they could catch—fish, turtles, birds, and even other mosasaurs. Their double-jointed jaws could open wide, allowing them to swallow large prey whole.

Who Would Win in a Fight?

While it’s fun to imagine a battle between an ichthyosaur and a mosasaur, it never could have happened—ichthyosaurs were long extinct by the time mosasaurs evolved. That said, mosasaurs were more heavily built and had powerful jaws, making them formidable hunters. Ichthyosaurs were faster and more agile, more suited to quick chases than brute force.

Legacy Beneath the Waves

Both ichthyosaurs and mosasaurs left behind rich fossil records, giving scientists insight into how reptiles adapted to life in the oceans. Their bones have been found on every continent, including Antarctica, reminding us that the ancient oceans were just as dynamic and dangerous as today’s wildest habitats.

Next time you watch a documentary about dinosaurs or visit a natural history museum, take a moment to appreciate the marine reptiles that once ruled the seas. After all, the land wasn't the only place where prehistoric giants thrived.

DINOFLAGELLATES: TEENSY OCEAN STARS

This showy Christmas Cracker is a Dinoflagellate

The showy royal blue Christmas cracker looking fellow you see here is a dinoflagellate. 

Bioluminescent dinoflagellates are a type of plankton — teensy marine organisms that make the seaways shimmer as you swim through them or the tide crashes them against the shore. 

The first modern dinoflagellate was described by Baker in 1753, the first species was formally named by Muller in 1773. 

The first fossil forms were described by Ehrenberg in the 1830s from Cretaceous outcrops. More dinoflagellates have lived, died and gone extinct than there are living today. We know them mainly from fossil dinocysts dating back to the Triassic. They are one of the most primitive of the eukaryotic group with a fossil record that may extend into the Precambrian. They combine primitive characteristics of prokaryotes and advanced eukaryotic features.

The luciferase found in dinoflagellates is related to the green chemical chlorophyll found in plants. Their twinkling lights are brief, each containing about 100 million photons that shine for only a tenth of a second. While each individual flicker is here and gone in the wink of an eye, en masse they are breathtaking. I have spent several wondrous evenings scuba diving amongst these glittering denizens off our shores. What you know about light above the surface does not hold true for the light you see as bioluminescence. Its energy and luminosity come from a chemical reaction. 

In a luminescent reaction, two types of chemicals — luciferin and luciferase — combine together. Together, they produce cold light — light that generates less than 20% thermal radiation or heat. 

The light you see is produced by a compound called Luciferin. It is the shiny, showy bit in this chemical show. Luciferase acts as an enzyme, the substance that acts as a catalyst controlling the rate of chemical reactions, allowing the luciferin to release energy as it is oxidized. 

The colour of the light depends on the chemical structures of the chemicals. There are more than a dozen known chemical luminescent systems, indicating that bioluminescence evolved independently in different groups of organisms.

Coelenterazine is the type of luciferin we find in shrimp, fish and jellyfish. Dinoflagellates and krill share another class of unique luciferins, while ostracods or firefleas and some fish have a completely different luciferin — but all produce lights of various colours to great effect.  

EXPLORING WRANGELLIA: HAIDA GWAII

Misty shores, moss covered forests, a rich cultural history, dappled light, fossils and the smell of salt air—these are my memories of Haida Gwaii.

The archipelago of Haida Gwaii lays at the western edge of the continental shelf due west of the central coast of British Columbia.

They form part of Wrangellia, an exotic tectonostratigraphic terrane that includes Vancouver Island, parts western British Columbia and Alaska.

The Geological Survey of Canada sponsored many expeditions to these remote islands and has produced numerous reference papers on this magnificent terrain, exploring both the geology and palaeontology of the area.

Joseph Whiteaves, the GSC's chief palaeontologist in Ottawa, published a paper in 1876 describing the Jurassic and Cretaceous faunas of Skidegate Inlet, furthering his reputation globally as both a geologist, palaeontologist as well as a critical thinker in the area of science.

The praise was well-earned and foreshadowed his significant contributions to come. Sixteen years later, he wrote up and published his observations on a strange Mount Stephen fossil that resembled a kind of headless shrimp with poorly preserved appendages. 

Because of the unusual pointed shape of the supposed ventral appendages and the position of the spines near the posterior of the animal, Whiteaves named it Anomalocaris canadensis. The genus name "Anomalocaris" means "unlike other shrimp" and the species name "canadensis" refers to the country of origin.

Whiteaves work on the palaeontology of Haida Gwaii provided excellent reference tools, particularly his work on the Cretaceous exposures and fauna that can be found there.

One of our fossil field trips was to the ruggedly beautiful Cretaceous exposures of Lina Island. We had planned this expedition as part of our “trips of a lifetime.” 

Both John Fam, the Vice Chair of the Vancouver Paleontological Society and Dan Bowen, the Chair of both the British Columbia Paleontological Alliance and Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society, can be congratulated for their efforts in researching the area and ably coordinating a warm welcome by the First Nations community and organizing fossil field trips to some of the most amazing fossil localities in the Pacific Northwest.

With great sandstone beach exposures, the fossil-rich (Albian to Cenomanian) Haida formation provided ample specimens, some directly in the bedding planes and many in concretion. Many of the concretions contained multiple specimens of typical Haida Formation fauna, providing a window into this Cretaceous landscape.

It is always interesting to see who was making a living and co-existing in our ancient oceans at the time these fossils were laid down. We found multiple beautifully preserved specimens of the spiny ammonite, Douvelleiceras spiniferum along with Brewericeras hulenense, Cleoniceras perezianum and many cycads in concretion.

Douvelliceras spiniferum, Cretaceous Haida Formation

Missing from this trip log are tales of Rene Savenye, who passed away in the weeks just prior. While he wasn't there in body, he was with us in spirit. I thought of him often on the mist-shrouded days of collecting. 

Many of the folk on who joined me on those outcrops were friends of Rene's and would go on to receive the Rene Savenye Award for their contributions to palaeontology. There is a certain poetry in that. 

The genus Douvilleiceras range from Middle to Late Cretaceous and can be found in Asia, Africa, Europe and North and South America. 

We have beautiful examples in the early to mid-Albian from the archipelago of Haida Gwaii in British Columbia. Joseph F. Whiteaves was the first to recognize the genus from Haida Gwaii when he was looking over the early collections of James Richardson and George Dawson.

My collections from Haida Gwaii will all be lovingly prepped and donated to the Haida Gwaii Museum in Skidegate, British Columbia.

HUNTING NEUTRINOS AND DARK MATTER

Deep inside the largest and deepest gold mine in North America scientists are looking for dark matter particles and neutrinos instead of precious metals. It may not seem exciting on the surface — but it was far below!

The Homestake Gold Mine in Lawrence County, South Dakota was a going concern from about 1876 to 2001.

The mine produced more than forty million troy ounces of gold in its one hundred and twenty-five-year history, dating back to the beginnings of the Black Hills Gold Rush.

To give its humble beginnings a bit of context, Homestake was started in the days of miners hauling loads of ore via horse and mule and the battles of the Great Sioux War. Folk moved about via horse-drawn buggies and Alexander Graham Bell had just made his first successful telephone call.

Wyatt Earp was working in Dodge City, Kansas — he had yet to get the heck outta Dodge — and Mark Twain was in the throes of publishing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.  — And our dear Thomas Edison had just opened his first industrial research lab in Menlo Park. The mine is part of the Homestake Formation, an Early Proterozoic layer of iron carbonate and iron silicate that produces auriferous greenschist gold. What does all that geeky goodness mean? If you were a gold miner it would be music to your ears. They ground down that schist to get the glorious good stuff and made a tiny wee sum doing so. But then gold prices levelled off — from 1997 ($287.05) to 2001 ($276.50) — and rumblings from the owners started to grow. They bailed in 2001, ironically just before gold prices started up again.

But back to 2001, that levelling saw the owners look to a new source of revenue in an unusual place. One they had explored way back in the 1960s in a purpose-built underground laboratory that sounds more like something out of a science fiction book. The brainchild of chemist and astrophysicists, John Bahcall and Raymond Davis Jr. from the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, the laboratory was used to observe solar neutrinos, electron neutrinos produced by the Sun as a product of nuclear fusion

DOUVILLEICERAS MAMMILLATUM

Some lovely examples of Douvilleiceras mammillatum (Schlotheim, 1813), ammonites from the Lower Cretaceous (Middle-Lower Albian) Douvilliceras inequinodum zone of Ambarimaninga, Mahajanga Province, Madagascar.

The genus Douvilleiceras range from Middle to Late Cretaceous and can be found in Asia, Africa, Europe and North and South America. 

We have beautiful examples in the early to mid-Albian from the archipelago of Haida Gwaii in British Columbia. Joseph F. Whiteaves was the first to recognize the genus from Haida Gwaii when he was looking over the early collections of James Richardson and George Dawson. The beauties you see here measure 6cm to 10cm.