FOSSILS OF TURTLE ISLAND'S EAST KOOTENAY REGION

Tanglefoot Mountain. Photo: Dan Bowden

The East Kootenay region on the south-eastern edge of British Columbia is a land of colossal mountains against a clear blue sky. 

That is not strictly true, of course, as this area does see its fair share of rain and temperature extremes — but visiting in the summer every view is a postcard of mountainous terrain.

Rocks from deep within the Earth's crust underlie the entire East Kootenay region and are commonly exposed in the area's majestic mountain peaks, craggy rocky cliffs, glaciated river canyons, and rock cuts along the highways. Younger Ice Age sediments blanket much of the underlying rock.

I have been heading to the Cranbrook and Fernie area since the early 1990s. My interest is the local geology and fossil history that these rocks have to tell. I am also drawn to the warm and welcoming locals who share a love for the land and palaeontological treasures that open a window to our ancient past.  

Cranbrook is the largest community in the region and is steeped in mining history and the opening of the west by the railway. It is also a stone's throw away from Fort Steele and the Lower Cambrian exposures of the Eager Formation. These fossil beds rival the slightly younger Burgess Shale fauna and while less varied, produce wonderful examples of olenellid trilobites and weird and wonderful arthropods nearly half a billion years old. 

Labiostria westriopi, McKay Group

The Lower Cambrian Eager Formation outcrops at a few localities close to Fort Steele, many known since the early 1920s, and up near Mount Grainger near the highway. 

Further east, the Upper Cambrian McKay Group near Tanglefoot Mountain is a palaeontological delight with fifteen known outcrops that have produced some of the best-preserved and varied trilobites in the province — many of them new species. 

The McKay Formation also includes Ordovician outcrops sprinkled in for good measure.

Other cities in the area and the routes to and from them produce other fossil fauna from Kimberley to Fernie and the district municipality of Invermere and Sparwood. This is an arid country with native grasslands and forests of semi-open fir and pine. Throughout there are a host of fossiliferous exposures from Lower Cretaceous plants to brachiopods. 

The area around Whiteswan Lake has wonderful large and showy Ordovician graptolites including Cardiograptus morsus and Pseudoclimacograptus angustifolius elongates — some of our oldest relatives. A drive down to Flathead will bring you to ammonite outcrops and you can even find Eocene fresh-water snails in the region. 

The drive from Cranbrook to Fernie is about an hour and change through the Cambrian into the Devonian which flip-flops and folds over revealing Jurassic exposures. On my last visit, I made the trip with local geologist Guy Santucci who swings around the hairpin bends with panache. He is a delight to travel with and interspersed great conversation with tasty bits of information on the local geology.

Fernie Ichthyosaur Excavation, 1916

The Crowsnest Highway into Fernie follows Mutz Creek. From the highway, you can see the Fernie Group and the site along the Elk River where an ichthyosaur was excavated in 1916. 

The Fernie Formation is Jurassic. It is present in the western part of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin in western Alberta and northeastern British Columbia. 

It takes its name from the town of Fernie, British Columbia, and was first defined by W.W. Leach in 1914. The town of Fernie is rimmed by rugged mountains tipped with Devonian marine outcrops. In essence, all these mountains are upside down with the oldest layers flipped to the top and a good 180 million years older than those they sit upon. 

Before they were mountains, these sedimentary rocks were formed as sediment collected in a shallow sea or inland basin. About 360 million years ago, the rocks that you see in Fernie today were down near the equator. They road tectonic plates, pushing northeast smashing into the coastline of what would become British Columbia. A little push here, shove there — compression and thrust faulting — and the rock was rolled over on its head — repeatedly. But that is how mountains are often formed, though not usually pushed so hard that they flip over. But still, it is a slow, relentless business. 

Cretaceous Plant Material, Fernie, BC

Within Fernie, there are small exposures of Triassic and Jurassic marine outcrops. East of the town there are Cretaceous plant sites, and of course, the Jurassic 1.4-metre Titanites occidentalis ammonite up on Coal Mountain.

Once up at the fossil exposures we begin to look for treasures. Over the next four or five hours, as the heat of the day sets in, we find block after block of dark brown to beige Cretaceous material embedded with coal seams and lithified fossil remains.

The regional district's dominant landform is the Rocky Mountain Trench, which is flanked by the Purcell Mountains and the Rocky Mountains on the east and west, and includes the Columbia Valley region. The southern half of which is in the regional district — its northern half is in the Columbia-Shuswap Regional District. 

The regional district of Elk Valley in the southern Rockies is the entryway to the Crowsnest Pass and an important coal-mining area. 

Other than the Columbia and Kootenay Rivers, whose valleys shape the bottomlands of the Rocky Mountain Trench, the regional districts form the northernmost parts of the basins of the Flathead, Moyie and Yahk Rivers. 

The Moyie and Yahk are tributaries of the Kootenay, entering it in the United States, and the Flathead is a tributary of the Clark Fork into Montana.

Photo One: Tyaughton Mountain, Mckay Group taken by Dan Bowden via drone; Photo Two: Labiostria westriopi, Upper Cambrian McKay Group, Site ML (1998); John Fam Collection; Photo Three: Ichthyosaur Excavation, Fernie, British Columbia, 1916; Photo Four: Cretaceous Plant Fossils, east of Fernie towards Coal Mountain. The deeply awesome Guy Santucci as hand-model for scale. 

LOWER LIAS LYTOCERAS

A superbly prepped and extremely rare Lytoceras (Suess, 1865) ammonite found as a green ammonite nodule by Matt Cape in the Lower Lias of Dorset. 

Lytoceras are rare in the Lower Lias of Dorset — apart from the Belemnite Stone horizon — so much so that Paul Davis, whose skilled prep work you see here, initially thought it might be a Becheiceras hidden within the large, lumpy nodule. 

One of the reasons these lovelies are rarely found from here is that they are a Mediterranean Tethyian genus. The fossil fauna we find in the United Kingdom are dominated by Boreal Tethyian genera. 

We do find Lytoceras sp. in the Luridum subzone of the Pliensbachian showing that there was an influx of species from the Mediterranean realm during this time. This is the first occurrence of a Lytoceras that he has ever seen in a green nodule and Paul's seen quite a few. 

This absolutely cracking specimen was found and is in the collections of the awesome Matt Cape. Matt recognized that whatever was hidden in the nodule would take skilled and careful preparation using air scribes. Indeed it did. It took more than five hours of time and skill to unveil the lovely museum-worthy specimen you see here. 

We find Lytoceras in more than 1,000 outcrops around the globe ranging from the Jurassic through to the Cretaceous, some 189.6 to 109.00 million years ago. Once this specimen is fully prepped with the nodule material cut or scraped away, you can see the detailed crinkly growth lines or riblets on the shell and none of the expected coarse ribbing. 

Lytoceras sp. Photo: Craig Chivers

If you imagine running your finger along these, you would be tracing the work of decades of growth of these cephalopods. 

While we cannot know their actual lifespans, but we can make a healthy guess. 

The nautilus, their closest living cousins live upwards of 20 years — gods be good — and less than three years if conditions are poor.

The flanges, projecting flat ribs or collars, develop at the edge of the mouth border on the animal's mantle as they grow each new chamber. 

Each delicate flange grows over the course of the ammonites life, marking various points in time and life stages as the ammonite grew. There is a large variation within Lytoceras with regards to flanges. They provide both ornamentation and strength to the shell to protect it from water pressure as they moved into deeper seas.

The concretion prior to prep

This distinctive genus with its evolute shells are found in the Cretaceous marine deposits of: 

Antarctica (5 collections), Austria (19), Colombia (1), the Czech Republic (3), Egypt (2), France (194), Greenland (16), Hungary (25), Italy (11), Madagascar (2), Mexico (1), Morocco (4), Mozambique (1), Poland (2), Portugal (1), Romania (1), the Russian Federation (2), Slovakia (3), South Africa (1), Spain (24), Tanzania (1), Trinidad and Tobago (1), Tunisia (25); and the United States of America (17: Alaska, California, North Carolina, Oregon).

We also find them in Jurassic marine outcrops in:

Austria (15), Canada (9: British Columbia), Chile (6), France (181), Germany (11), Greenland (1), Hungary (189), India (1), Indonesia (1), Iran (1), Italy (50), Japan (14), Kenya (2), Luxembourg (4), Madagascar (2), Mexico (1), Morocco (43), New Zealand (15), Portugal (1), Romania (5), the Russian Federation (1), Slovakia (1), Spain (6), Switzerland (2), Tunisia (11), Turkey (12), Turkmenistan (1), Ukraine (5), the United Kingdom (12), United States (11: Alaska, California) — in at least 977 known collections. 

References:

Sepkoski, Jack (2002). "A compendium of fossil marine animal genera (Cephalopoda entry)". Bulletins of American Paleontology. 363: 1–560. Archived from the original on 2008-05-07. Retrieved 2017-10-18.

Paleobiology Database - Lytoceras. 2017-10-19.

Systematic descriptions, Mesozoic Ammonoidea, by W.J Arkell, Bernhard Kummel, and C.W. Wright. 1957. Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, Part L. Geological Society of America and University of Kansas press.

FOSSIL FELINES: MISTER MOZART

Mister Mozart

Cats—those purring enigmas who act like they invented gravity and disdain—have been perfecting their aloof charm for tens of millions of years. 

Long before domestic life on the couch, they prowled prehistoric forests and savannas, already masters of stealth.

The feline family tree begins about 25 million years ago with the Proailurus, whose name literally means “first cat.” 

This Miocene-era predator lived in Europe and Asia and probably looked like your housecat—if your housecat could take down small deer. 

Proailurus gave rise to the Pseudaelurus, the cat that would eventually split into two great evolutionary lineages: the big cats (Pantherinae, including lions, tigers, and leopards) and the small cats (Felinae, which include your couch companion, Felis catus), and snuggle bunnies like Mister Mozart you see here.

By the Pleistocene, cats had diversified spectacularly—from the legendary Smilodon, the sabre-toothed showstopper of Ice Age fame, to the lithe wildcats that would one day move into our granaries, charm our ancestors, and domesticate us. 

Yes, evidence suggests that around 10,000 years ago, humans didn’t so much tame cats as cats decided that humans were helpful enough to tolerate. A trend that continues to this day. 

Their fossils—sleek jaws, retractable claws, and the occasional pawprint—tell a story of evolutionary precision. Cats didn’t just evolve; they optimised. Every leap, pounce, and inscrutable stare has been honed by millions of years of predatory perfection.

So when your cat knocks your favourite mug off the counter and looks smug about it, remember: you’re gazing into the eyes of a finely tuned Miocene hunter. Evolution, it seems, has a sense of humour—and a soft spot for whiskers.

Kane & Mozart divving up the best bed spots

Despite centuries of cartoon propaganda suggesting otherwise, cats and dogs can form some of the most endearing interspecies friendships in the animal kingdom. 

While their social codes differ—dogs being pack-oriented and demonstrative, cats favouring solitary stealth and subtlety—mutual respect (and occasionally a shared sunny spot or prime position on your bed) often bridges the divide. 

Studies in animal behaviour show that early socialisation, body language recognition, and individual temperament play key roles in fostering harmony between felines and canines. 

A confident cat and a calm, well-socialised dog are a recipe for peaceful coexistence—and sometimes, genuine affection. Watching a cat gently groom a dog’s ears or a Ridgeback stoically endure a kitten’s playful ambush brings a smile to us all. Evolution may have set them on different paths, but friendship, it seems, is a universal instinct.

VANCOUVER ISLAND'S HIDDEN GEMS: TRENT RIVER

Dan Bowen, Chair, VIPS, Trent River

The rocks that make up the Trent River on Vancouver Island were laid down south of the equator as small, tropical islands. They rode across the Pacific heading north and slightly east over the past 85 million years to where we find them today.

The Pacific Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. And it is massive. At 103 million km2 (40 million sq mi), it is the largest tectonic plate and continues to grow fed by volcanic eruptions that piggyback onto its trailing edge.

This relentless expansion pushes the Pacific Plate into the North American Plate. The pressure subducts it beneath our continent where it then melts back into the earth. Plate tectonics are slow but powerful forces. 

The island chains that rode the plates across the Pacific smashed into our coastline and slowly built the province of British Columbia. And because each of those islands had a different origin, they create pockets of interesting and diverse geology.

It is these islands that make up the Insular Belt — a physio-geological region on the northwestern North American coast. It consists of three major island groups — and many smaller islands — that stretches from southern British Columbia up into Alaska and the Yukon. These bits of islands on the move arrived from the Late Cretaceous through the Eocene — and continues to this day.

The rocks that form the Insular Superterrane are allochthonous, meaning they are not related to the rest of the North American continent. The rocks we walk over along the Trent River are distinct from those we find throughout the rest of Vancouver Island, Haida Gwaii, the rest of the province of British Columbia and completely foreign to those we find next door in Alberta.

To discover what we do find on the Trent takes only a wee stroll, a bit of digging and time to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. The first geological forays to Vancouver Island were to look for coal deposits, the profitable remains of ancient forests that could be burned to the power industry.

Jim Monger and Charlie Ross of the Geological Survey of Canada both worked to further our knowledge of the complex geology of the Comox Basin. 

They were at the cutting edge of west coast geology in the 1970s. It was their work that helped tease out how and where the rocks we see along the Trent today were formed and made their way north.

We know from their work that by 85 million years ago, the Insular Superterrane had made its way to what is now British Columbia. 

The lands were forested much as they are now but by extinct genera and families. The fossil remains of trees similar to oak, poplar, maple and ash can be found along the Trent and Vancouver Island. We also see the lovely remains of flowering plants such as Cupanities crenularis, figs and breadfruit.

Heading up the river, you come to a delineation zone that clearly marks the contact between the dark grey marine shales and mudstones of the Haslam Formation where they meet the sandstones of the Comox Formation. Fossilized material is less abundant in the Comox sandstones but still contains some interesting specimens. Here you begin to see fossilized wood and identifiable fossil plant material.

Further upstream, there is a small tributary, Idle Creek, where you can find more of this terrestrial material in the sandy shales. As you walk up, you see identifiable fossil plants beneath your feet and jungle-like, overgrown moss-covered, snarly trees all around you.

Walking west from the Trent River Falls at the bottom, you pass the infamous Ammonite Alley, where you can find Mesopuzosia sp. and Kitchinites sp. of the Upper Cretaceous (Santonian), Haslam Formation. Minding the slippery green algae covering some of the river rocks, you can see the first of the Polytychoceras vancouverense zone.

Continuing west, you reach the first of two fossil turtle sites on the river — amazingly, one terrestrial and one marine. If you continue, you come to the Inland Island Highway.

The Trent River has yielded some very interesting marine specimens, and significant terrestrial finds. We have found a wonderful terrestrial helochelydrid turtle, Naomichelys speciosa, and the caudal vertebrae of a Hadrosauroid dinosaur. Walking down from the Hadrosaur site you come to the site of the fossil ratfish find — one of the ocean's oddest fish.

Ratfish, Hydrolagus Collie, are chimaera found in the north-eastern Pacific Ocean today. The fossil specimen from the Trent would be considered large by modern standards as it is a bruiser in comparison to his modern counterparts. 

This robust fellow had exceptionally large eyes and sex organs that dangled enticingly between them. You mock, but there are many ratfish who would differ. While inherently sexy by ratfish standards, this fellow was not particularly tasty to their ancient marine brethren (or humans today) — so not hugely sought after as a food source or prey.

A little further again from the ratfish site we reach the contact of the two Formations. The rocks here have travelled a long way to their current location. With them, we peel away the layers of the geologic history of both the Comox Valley and the province of British Columbia.

The Trent River is not far from the Puntledge, a river whose banks have also revealed many wonderful fossil specimens. The Puntledge is also the name used by the K'ómoks First Nation to describe themselves. They have lived here since time immemorial. Along with Puntledge, they refer to themselves as Sahtloot, Sasitla and Ieeksun.

References: Note on the occurrence of the marine turtle Desmatochelys (Reptilia: Chelonioidea) from the Upper Cretaceous of Vancouver Island Elizabeth L. Nicholls Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences (1992) 29 (2): 377–380. https://doi.org/10.1139/e92-033; References: Chimaeras - The Neglected Chondrichthyans". Elasmo-research.org. Retrieved 2017-07-01.

Directions: If you're keen to explore the area, park on the side of Highway 19 about three kilometres south of Courtenay and hike up to the Trent River. Begin to look for parking about three kilometres south of the Cumberland Interchange. There is a trail that leads from the highway down beneath the bridge which will bring you to the Trent River's north side.

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VANCOUVER ISLAND'S FABULOUS FOSSILS: TRENT RIVER PALAEONTOLOGY

Dan Bowen, Chair, VIPS, Trent River

The rocks that make up the Trent River on Vancouver Island are on the move. They were laid down near of the equator as small, tropical islands. They rode across the Pacific heading north and slightly east over the past 85 million years to where we find them today.

The Pacific Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. And it is massive. At 103 million km2 (40 million sq mi), it is the largest tectonic plate and continues to grow fed by volcanic eruptions that piggyback onto its trailing edge.

This relentless expansion pushes the Pacific Plate into the North American Plate. The pressure subducts it beneath our continent where it then melts back into the earth. Plate tectonics are slow but powerful forces. 

The island chains that rode the plates across the Pacific smashed into our coastline and slowly built the province of British Columbia. And because each of those islands had a different origin, they create pockets of interesting and diverse geology.

It is these islands that make up the Insular Belt — a physio-geological region on the northwestern North American coast. It consists of three major island groups — and many smaller islands — that stretches from southern British Columbia up into Alaska and the Yukon. These bits of islands on the move arrived from the Late Cretaceous through the Eocene — and continues to this day.

The rocks that form the Insular Superterrane are allochthonous, meaning they are not related to the rest of the North American continent. The rocks we walk over along the Trent River are distinct from those we find throughout the rest of Vancouver Island, Haida Gwaii, the rest of the province of British Columbia and completely foreign to those we find next door in Alberta.

To discover what we do find on the Trent takes only a wee stroll, a bit of digging and time to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. The first geological forays to Vancouver Island were to look for coal deposits, the profitable remains of ancient forests that could be burned to the power industry.

Jim Monger and Charlie Ross of the Geological Survey of Canada both worked to further our knowledge of the complex geology of the Comox Basin. They were at the cutting edge of west coast geology in the 1970s. It was their work that helped tease out how and where the rocks we see along the Trent today were formed and made their way north.

We know from their work that by 85 million years ago, the Insular Superterrane had made its way to what is now British Columbia. 

The lands were forested much as they are now but by extinct genera and families. The fossil remains of trees similar to oak, poplar, maple and ash can be found along the Trent and Vancouver Island. We also see the lovely remains of flowering plants such as Cupanities crenularis, figs and breadfruit.

Heading up the river, you come to a delineation zone that clearly marks the contact between the dark grey marine shales and mudstones of the Haslam Formation where they meet the sandstones of the Comox Formation. Fossilized material is less abundant in the Comox sandstones but still contains some interesting specimens. Here you begin to see fossilized wood and identifiable fossil plant material.

Further upstream, there is a small tributary, Idle Creek, where you can find more of this terrestrial material in the sandy shales. As you walk up, you see identifiable fossil plants beneath your feet and jungle-like, overgrown moss-covered, snarly trees all around you.

Walking west from the Trent River Falls at the bottom, you pass the infamous Ammonite Alley, where you can find Mesopuzosia sp. and Kitchinites sp. of the Upper Cretaceous (Santonian), Haslam Formation. Minding the slippery green algae covering some of the river rocks, you can see the first of the Polytychoceras vancouverense zone.

Continuing west, you reach the first of two fossil turtle sites on the river — amazingly, one terrestrial and one marine. If you continue, you come to the Inland Island Highway.

The Trent River has yielded some very interesting marine specimens, and significant terrestrial finds. We have found a wonderful terrestrial helochelydrid turtle, Naomichelys speciosa, and the caudal vertebrae of a Hadrosauroid dinosaur. Walking down from the Hadrosaur site you come to the site of the fossil ratfish find — one of the ocean's oddest fish.

Ratfish, Hydrolagus Collie, are chimaera found in the north-eastern Pacific Ocean today. The fossil specimen from the Trent would be considered large by modern standards as it is a bruiser in comparison to his modern counterparts. 

This robust fellow had exceptionally large eyes and sex organs that dangled enticingly between them. You mock, but there are many ratfish who would differ. While inherently sexy by ratfish standards, this fellow was not particularly tasty to their ancient marine brethren (or humans today) — so not hugely sought after as a food source or prey.

A little further again from the ratfish site we reach the contact of the two Formations. The rocks here have travelled a long way to their current location. With them, we peel away the layers of the geologic history of both the Comox Valley and the province of British Columbia.

The Trent River is not far from the Puntledge, a river whose banks have also revealed many wonderful fossil specimens. The Puntledge is also the name used by the K'ómoks First Nation to describe themselves. They have lived here since time immemorial. Along with Puntledge, they refer to themselves as Sahtloot, Sasitla and Ieeksun.

References: Note on the occurrence of the marine turtle Desmatochelys (Reptilia: Chelonioidea) from the Upper Cretaceous of Vancouver Island Elizabeth L. Nicholls Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences (1992) 29 (2): 377–380. https://doi.org/10.1139/e92-033; References: Chimaeras - The Neglected Chondrichthyans". Elasmo-research.org. Retrieved 2017-07-01.

Directions: If you're keen to explore the area, park on the side of Highway 19 about three kilometres south of Courtenay and hike up to the Trent River. Begin to look for parking about three kilometres south of the Cumberland Interchange. There is a trail that leads from the highway down beneath the bridge which will bring you to the Trent River's north side.

EXPLORING THE GLORIOUS KOOTENAY REGION

The East Kootenay region on the south-eastern edge of British Columbia is a land of colossal mountains against a clear blue sky. 

That is not strictly true, of course, as this area does see its fair share of rain and temperature extremes — but visiting in Autumn every view is a postcard of mountainous terrain.

Rocks from deep within the Earth's crust underlie the entire East Kootenay region and are commonly exposed in the areas majestic mountain peaks, craggy rocky cliffs, glaciated river canyons, and rock cuts along the highways. Younger Ice Age sediments blanket much of the underlying rock.

I've been heading to the Cranbrook and Fernie area since the early 1990s. My interest is the local geology and fossil history that these rocks have to tell. I'm also drawn to the warm and welcoming locals who share a love for the land and palaeontological treasures that open a window to our ancient past.  

Cranbrook is the largest community in the region and is steeped in mining history and the opening of the west by the railway. It is also a stone's throw away from Fort Steele and the Lower Cambrian exposures of the Eager Formation. These fossil beds rival the slightly younger Burgess Shale fauna and while less varied, produce wonderful examples of olenellid trilobites and weird and wonderful arthropods half a billion years old. 

Labiostria westriopi, McKay Group

The Lower Cambrian Eager Formation outcrops at a few localities close to Fort Steele, many known since the early 1920s, and up near Mount Grainger near the highway. 

Further east, the Upper Cambrian McKay Group near Tanglefoot Mountain is a palaeontological delight with fifteen known outcrops that have produced some of the best-preserved and varied trilobites in the province — many of them new species. 

The McKay Formation also includes Ordovician outcrops sprinkled in for good measure.

Other cities in the area and the routes to and from them produce other fossil fauna from Kimberley to Fernie and the district municipality of Invermere and Sparwood. This is an arid country with native grasslands and forests of semi-open fir and pine. Throughout there are a host of fossiliferous exposures from Lower Cretaceous plants to brachiopods. 

The area around Whiteswan Lake has wonderful large and showy Ordovician graptolites including Cardiograptus morsus and Pseudoclimacograptus angustifolius elongates — some of our oldest relatives. A drive down to Flathead will bring you to ammonite outcrops and you can even find Eocene fresh-water snails in the region. 

The drive from Cranbrook to Fernie is about an hour and change through the Cambrian into the Devonian which flip-flops and folds over revealing Jurassic exposures. 

Fernie Ichthyosaur Excavation, 1916

The Crowsnest Highway into Fernie follows Mutz Creek. From the highway, you can see the Fernie Group and the site along the Elk River where an ichthyosaur was excavated in 1916. 

The Fernie Formation is Jurassic. It is present in the western part of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin in western Alberta and northeastern British Columbia. 

It takes its name from the town of Fernie, British Columbia, and was first defined by W.W. Leach in 1914. The town of Fernie is rimmed by rugged mountains tipped with Devonian marine outcrops. In essence, all these mountains are upside down with the oldest layers flipped to the top and a good 180 million years older than those they sit upon. 

Before they were mountains, these sedimentary rocks were formed as sediment collected in a shallow sea or inland basin. About 360 million years ago, the rocks that you see in Fernie today were down near the equator. 

They road tectonic plates, pushing northeast smashing into the coastline of what would become British Columbia. A little push here, shove there — compression and thrust faulting — and the rock was rolled over on its head — repeatedly. But that is how mountains are often formed, though not usually pushed so hard that they flip over. But still, it is a slow, relentless business. 

Cretaceous Plant Material, Fernie, BC

Within Fernie, there are small exposures of Triassic and Jurassic marine outcrops. East of the town there are Cretaceous plant sites, and of course, the Jurassic 1.4-metre Titanites occidentalis ammonite up on Coal Mountain.

The regional district's dominant landform is the Rocky Mountain Trench, which is flanked by the Purcell Mountains and the Rocky Mountains on the east and west, and includes the Columbia Valley region. 

The southern half of which is in the regional district — its northern half is in the Columbia-Shuswap Regional District. 

The regional district of Elk Valley in the southern Rockies is the entryway to the Crowsnest Pass and an important coal-mining area. 

Other than the Columbia and Kootenay Rivers, whose valleys shape the bottomlands of the Rocky Mountain Trench, the regional districts form the northernmost parts of the basins of the Flathead, Moyie and Yahk Rivers. 

The Moyie and Yahk are tributaries of the Kootenay, entering it in the United States, and the Flathead is a tributary of the Clark Fork into Montana.

Photo One: Tyaughton Mountain, Mckay Group; Photo Two: Labiostria westriopi, Upper Cambrian McKay Group, Site ML (1998); John Fam Collection; Photo Three: Ichthyosaur Excavation, Fernie, British Columbia, 1916; Photo Four: Cretaceous Plant Fossils, east of Fernie towards Coal Mountain. The deeply awesome Guy Santucci as hand-model for scale. 

FOSSIL BIRDS FROM SOUTHERN VANCOUVER ISLAND

Stemec suntokum, Sooke Formation

The diving bird you see here is Stemec suntokum, a Fossil Plopterid from Sooke, British Columbia, Canada.

We all dream of finding new species, and new fossil species in particular. This happens more than you think. 

As impossible as it sounds, it has happened numerous times at many fossils sites in British Columbia including Sooke on Vancouver Island.

The upper Oligocene Sooke Formation outcrops at Muir Beach on southwestern Vancouver Island, British Columbia where it is flanked by the cool, clear waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

While the site has been known since the 1890s, my first trip here was in the early 1990s as part of a Vancouver Paleontological Society (VanPS) fossil field trip. This easy, beach walk locality is a wonderful place to collect fossils and is especially good for families. 

If you are solar-powered, you will enjoy the sun playing off the surf from May through September. If you are built of hardier stuff, then the drizzle of Spring or Autumn is a lovely, un-people-y time to walk the beachfront.

As well as amazing west coast scenery, the beach site outcrop has a lovely soft matrix with well-preserved fossil molluscs, often with the shell material preserved (Clark and Arnold, 1923).

By the Oligocene ocean temperatures had cooled to near modern levels and the taxa preserved here as fossils bear a strong resemblance to those found living beneath the Strait of Juan de Fuca today. Gastropods, bivalves, echinoids, coral, chitin and limpets are common-ish — and on rare occasions, fossil marine mammals, cetacean and bird bones are discovered.

Fossil Bird Bones 

Back in 2013, Steve Suntok and his family found fossilized bones from a 25-million-year-old wing-propelled flightless diving bird while out strolling the shoreline near Sooke. Not knowing what they had found but recognizing it as significant, the bones were brought to the Royal British Columbia Museum to identify.

The bones found their way into the hands of Gary Kaiser. Kaiser worked as a biologist for Environment Canada and the Nature Conservatory of Canada. After retirement, he turned his eye from our extant avian friends to their fossil lineage. The thing about passion is it never retires. Gary is now a research associate with the Royal British Columbia Museum, published author and continues his research on birds and their paleontological past.

Kaiser identified the well-preserved coracoid bones as the first example from Canada of a Plotopteridae, an extinct family that lived in the North Pacific from the late Eocene to the early Miocene. In honour of the First Nations who have lived in the area since time immemorial and Steve Suntok who found the fossil, Kaiser named the new genus and species Stemec suntokum.

Magellanic Penguin Chick, Spheniscus magellanicus

This is a very special find. Avian fossils from the Sooke Formation are rare. We are especially lucky that the bird bone was fossilized at all.  These are delicate bones and tasty. Scavengers often get to them well before they have a chance and the right conditions to fossilize.

Doubly lucky is that the find was of a coracoid, a bone from the shoulder that provides information on how this bird moved and dove through the water similar to a penguin. It's the wee bit that flexes as the bird moves his wing up and down.

Picture a penguin doing a little waddle and flapping their flipper-like wings getting ready to hop near and dive into the water. Now imagine them expertly porpoising —  gracefully jumping out of the sea and zigzagging through the ocean to avoid predators. It is likely that the Sooke find did some if not all of these activities.

When preservation conditions are kind and we are lucky enough to find the forelimbs of our plotopterid friends, their bones tell us that these water birds used wing-propelled propulsion to move through the water similar to penguins (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).

Kaiser published on the find, along with Junya Watanabe, and Marji Johns. Their work: "A new member of the family Plotopteridae (Aves) from the late Oligocene of British Columbia, Canada," can be found in the November 2015 edition of Palaeontologia Electronica. If you fancy a read, I've included the link below.

The paper shares insights into what we have learned from the coracoid bone from the holotype Stemec suntokum specimen. It has an unusually narrow, conical shaft, much more gracile than the broad, flattened coracoids of other avian groups. This observation has led some to question if it is, in fact, a proto-cormorant of some kind. We'll need to find more of their fossilized lineage to make any additional comparisons.

Sooke, British Columbia and Juan de Fuca Strait

Today, fossils from these flightless birds have been found in outcrops in the United States and Japan (Olson and Hasegawa, 1996). They are bigger than the Sooke specimens, often growing up to two metres.

While we'll never know for sure, the wee fellow from the Sooke Formation was likely about 50-65 cm long and weighed in around 1.72-2.2 kg — so roughly the length of a duck and weight of a small Magellanic Penguin, Spheniscus magellanicus, chick. 

To give you a visual, I have included a photo of one of these cuties here showing off his full range of motion and calling common in so many young.

The first fossil described as a Plotopteridae was from a wee piece of the omal end of a coracoid from Oligocene outcrops of the Pyramid Hill Sand Member, Jewett Sand Formation of California (LACM 8927). Hildegarde Howard (1969) an American avian palaeontologist described it as Plotopterum joaquinensis. Hildegarde also did some fine work in the La Brea Tar Pits, particularly her work on the Rancho La Brea eagles.

In 1894, a portion of a pelagornithid tarsometatarsus, a lower leg bone from Cyphornis magnus (Cope, 1894) was found in Carmanah Group on southwestern Vancouver Island (Wetmore, 1928) and is now in the collections of the National Museum of Canada as P-189401/6323. This is the wee bone we find in the lower leg of birds and some dinosaurs. We also see this same bony feature in our Heterodontosauridae, a family of early and adorably tiny ornithischian dinosaurs — a lovely example of parallel evolution.

While rare, more bird bones have been found in the Sooke Formation over the past decade. In 2013, three avian bones were found in a single year. The first two were identified as possibly being from a cormorant and tentatively identified as Phalacrocoracidae tibiotarsi, the large bone between the femur and the tarsometatarsus in the leg of a bird.

They are now in the collections of the Royal BC Museum as (RBCM.EH2013.033.0001.001 and RBCM.EH2013.035.0001.001). These bones do have the look of our extant cormorant friends but the specimens themselves were not very well-preserved so a positive ID is tricky.

The third (and clearly not last) bone, is a well-preserved coracoid bone now in the collection at the RBCM as (RBCM.EH2014.032.0001.001).

The fossil bird find was the first significant find by the Suntok family but not their last. Just last year, they found part of a fish dental plate was studied by Russian researcher Evgeny Popov who named this new genus and species of prehistoric fish Canadodus suntoki, which translates to the "Tooth from Canada." Perhaps not quite as inspired as Kaiser, but a lovely homage to these Citizen Scientists.

Sooke Fossil Fauna

Along with these rare bird bones, the Paleogene sedimentary deposits of the Carmanah Group on southwestern Vancouver Island have a wonderful diversity of delicate fossil molluscs (Clark and Arnold, 1923). Walking along the beach, look for boulders with white shelly material in them. You'll want to collect from the large fossiliferous blocks and avoid the cliffs. The lines of fossils you see in those cliffs tell the story of deposition along a strandline. Collecting from them is both unsafe and poor form as it disturbs nearby neighbours and is discouraged.

Sooke Formation Gastropods, Photo: John Fam

We find nearshore and intertidal genera such as Mytilus (mussels) and barnacles, as well as more typically subtidal predatory globular moon snails (my personal favourite), surf clams (Spisula, Macoma), and thin, flattened Tellin clams.

The preservation here formed masses of shell coquinas that cemented together but are easily worked with a hammer and chisel. Remember your eye protection and I'd choose wellies or rubber boots over runners or hikers.

You may be especially lucky on your day out. Look for the larger fossil bones of marine mammals and whales that lived along the North American Pacific Coast in the Early Oligocene (Chattian).

Concretions and coquinas on the beach have yielded desmostylid, an extinct herbivorous marine mammal, Cornwallius sookensis (Cornwall, 1922) and 40 cm. skull of a cetacean Chonecetus sookensis (Russell, 1968), and a funnel whale, a primitive ancestor of our Baleen whales. 

A partial lower jaw and molar possibly from a large, bear-like beach-dwelling carnivore, Kolponomos, was also found here. A lovely skull from a specimen of Kolponomos clallamensis (Stirton, 1960) was found 60 km southwest across the Strait of Juan de Fuca in the early Miocene Clallam Formation and published by Lawrence Barnes and James Goedert. That specimen now calls the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County home and is in their collections as #131148.

Directions to Muir Creek Fossil Site at Sooke: 

From the town of Sooke west of Victoria, follow Highway 14 for about 14 kilometres. Just past the spot where the highway crosses Muir Creek, you will see a gravel parking area on your left. Pull in and park here. 

From the barrier, walk out to the beach and turn right (west) and walk until you see the low yellow-brown sandstone cliffs about 400 metres ahead. 

Look at the grey sandstone boulders on the beach with bits of white flecks in them. The fossil material here will most often be a whitish cream colour. Check for low tide before heading out and choose rubber boots for this beach adventure.

References: 

L. S. Russell. 1968. A new cetacean from the Oligocene Sooke Formation of Vancouver Island, British Colombia. Canadian Journal of Earth Science 5:929-933
Barnes, Lawrence & Goedert, James. (1996). Marine vertebrate palaeontology on the Olympic Peninsula. Washington Geology, 24(3):17-25.

Fancy a read? Here's the link to Gary Kaiser's paper: https://palaeo-electronica.org/content/2015/1359-plotopterid-in-canada. If you'd like to head to the beach site, head to: 48.4°N 123.9°W, paleo-coordinates 48.0°N 115.0°W.

AMMONITE BEAUTY: HOLCOPHYLLOCERAS

What is most wonderful about natural science is that every fossil—every spiral, ridge, and suture—opens a window onto a vanished world. 

Take, for instance, this tremendously robust, intricately sutured ammonite: Holcophylloceras mediterraneum (Neumayr, 1871). Collected from Late Jurassic (Oxfordian) deposits near Sokoja, Madagascar, it is a marvel of paleontological sculpture, a testament to evolutionary experimentation that thrived in the tropical Tethyan seas some 160 million years ago.

Madagascar has long been recognized as a treasure trove of beautifully preserved fossils. From its Cretaceous dinosaurs to its Triassic amphibians and its extraordinary Jurassic ammonites, the island offers a richness few regions can rival. 

The spiraled shell of Holcophylloceras mediterraneum is no exception—its ornate sutures and lustrous preservation hint at a creature exquisitely adapted to the warm, shallow continental shelf of Gondwana’s eastern margin.

Like all ammonites, Holcophylloceras built its shell in a series of chambers divided by walls known as septa. These septa, when intersecting the outer shell, formed the elaborate suture patterns that make collectors swoon—tangled, fractal-like lines that resemble botanical tracings or rivers on an ancient map.

Running through each chamber was the siphuncle, a biological marvel that allowed the ammonite to adjust the gas and fluid content inside its shell. In effect, ammonites carried a set of built-in ballast tanks, enabling them to rise and sink through the water column almost effortlessly. Their final and largest chamber—the body chamber—housed the soft tissues, including the tentacles, eyes, and muscular arms.

Picture, if you will, a squid or octopus, then surround it with a coiled, beautifully ribbed shell. Now place it in a warm tropical sea filled with predators and prey, reefs and drifting plankton, and a ton upon ton of water pressing down from above. That was the world Holcophylloceras mastered.

The Oxfordian oceans surrounding Madagascar were not quiet waters. They were alive—thrumming with movement, colour, and competition. The ammonite’s elegant spiral belies the reality of its bustling neighbourhood. Some of the many animals that would have swum, crawled, hunted, or drifted around Holcophylloceras mediterraneum include:

Marine Reptiles

• Plesiosaurs – long-necked Cryptoclidus–like forms gliding between shoals of fish.
• Ichthyosaurs – such as Ophthalmosaurus, sleek torpedo-shaped hunters with dinner-plate eyes built for dim, deeper waters.
• Pliosaurs – apex predators like Liopleurodon, whose cavernous jaws could swallow a human whole.

Other Cephalopods

Belemnites – dart-shaped squid-relatives such as Hibolithes, flickering through the water column like living arrows.

Other ammonite genera sharing these seas:

• Perisphinctes
• Asaphoceras
• Physodoceras
• Aspidoceras
• Glochiceras

Each species filled its own ecological niche, from fast-swimming pursuit hunters to slow-drifting plankton feeders.

Fishes and Sharks

• Hybodont sharks – including Hybodus and Asteracanthus, equipped with crushing teeth for shelled prey and formidable dorsal spines.
• Teleost fishes – early ray-finned fishes beginning to diversify.
• Coelacanths – ancient lobe-finned holdovers patrolling calmer waters.

Invertebrates

• Bivalves – oysters, rudists, and inoceramids carpeting the shallow seafloor.
• Gastropods – from turreted turritellids to broad-shelled neritids.
• Crustaceans – shrimp, lobsters, and small crabs scraping algae from reef structures.
• Sea urchins and echinoids – spiny architects of sandy burrows.

Reefs & Drifting Life

• Sponges and corals creating pocket reefs in warm carbonate-rich environments.
• Planktonic foraminifera and radiolarians – the drifting micro-architecture of the Jurassic sea, powering food webs from below.

Ammonites like Holcophylloceras thrived in these diverse ecosystems by filling a mid-level trophic niche. They were both predator and prey—nimble enough to hunt small fish and crustaceans, yet vulnerable to larger hunters. Their greatest evolutionary advantage was their ability to regulate buoyancy, adjusting depth as easily as a modern submarine.

But their most beautiful legacy remains their shells. In death, they fell to the seafloor, where their chambers filled with sediment, minerals, and eventually time itself. 

Today, polished by erosion or revealed in limestone, they offer a perfect blend of geometry, biology, and ancient artistry.

CANADA'S SMILODON

This fierce predator with the luxurious coat is Smilodon fatalis — a compact but robust killer that weighed in around 160 to 280 kg and was 1.5 - 2.2 metres long.

Smilodon is a genus of the extinct machairodont subfamily of the felids. It is one of the most famous prehistoric mammals and the best known saber-toothed cat. Although commonly known as the saber-toothed tiger, it was not closely related to the tiger or other modern cats.

Up until a few years ago, all the great fossil specimens of this apex predator were found south of us in the United States. That was until some interesting bones from Medicine Hat, Alberta got a second look.

A few years ago, a fossil specimen caught the eye of researcher Ashley Reynolds as she was rummaging through the collections at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. 

Back in the 1960s,  University of Toronto palaeontologist C.S. Churcher and his team had collected and donated more than 1,200 specimens from their many field seasons scouring the bluffs of the South Saskatchewan River near Medicine Hat, Alberta.

Churcher is a delightful storyteller and a palaeontologist with a keen eye. I had the very great pleasure of listening to many of his talks out at the University of British Columbia and a few Vancouver Paleontological Society meetings in the mid-2000s. 

"Rufus" was a thoroughly charming storyteller and shared many of his adventures from the field. 

He moved out to the West Coast for his retirement, first to Gabriola Island then to Victoria, but his keen love of the science kept him giving talks to enthralled listeners keen to hear about his survey of the Dakhleh Oasis in the Western Desert of Egypt, geomorphology, stratigraphy, recent biology, Pleistocene and Holocene lithic cultures, insights learned from Neolithic Islamic pottery to Roman settlements.

The specimens he had collected had been roughly sorted but never examined in detail. Reynolds, who was researching the growth patterns and life histories of extinct cats saw a familiar-looking bone from an ancient cat's right front paw. That tiny paw bone had reached through time and was positively identified as Canada's first Smilodon.

These Apex Predators used their exceptionally long upper canine teeth to hunt large mammals. 

Isotopes preserved in the bones of S. fatalis in the La Brea Tar Pits in California tell us that they liked to dine on bison (Bison antiquus) and camels (Camelops) along with deer and tapirs. Smilodon is thought to have killed its prey by holding it still with its forelimbs and biting it. And that was quite the bite!

Their razor-sharp incisors were arranged in an arch. Once they bit down, the teeth would hold their prey still and stabilize it while the canine bite was delivered — and what a bite that was. They could open their mouths a full 120 degrees.

Smilodon died out at the same time that most North and South American megafauna disappeared, about 10,000 years ago. Its reliance on large animals has been proposed as the cause of its extinction, along with climate change and competition with other species. 

LOWER LIAS LYTOCERAS

A superbly prepped and extremely rare Lytoceras (Suess, 1865) ammonite found as a green ammonite nodule by Matt Cape in the Lower Lias of Dorset. 

Lytoceras are rare in the Lower Lias of Dorset — apart from the Belemnite Stone horizon — so much so that Paul Davis, whose skilled prep work you see here, initially thought it might be a Becheiceras hidden within the large, lumpy nodule. 

One of the reasons these lovelies are rarely found from here is that they are a Mediterranean Tethyian genus. The fossil fauna we find in the United Kingdom are dominated by Boreal Tethyian genera. 

We do find Lytoceras sp. in the Luridum subzone of the Pliensbachian showing that there was an influx of species from the Mediterranean realm during this time. This is the first occurrence of a Lytoceras that he has ever seen in a green nodule and Paul's seen quite a few. 

This absolutely cracking specimen was found and is in the collections of the awesome Matt Cape. Matt recognized that whatever was hidden in the nodule would take skilled and careful preparation using air scribes. Indeed it did. It took more than five hours of time and skill to unveil the lovely museum-worthy specimen you see here. 

We find Lytoceras in more than 1,000 outcrops around the globe ranging from the Jurassic through to the Cretaceous, some 189.6 to 109.00 million years ago. Once this specimen is fully prepped with the nodule material cut or scraped away, you can see the detailed crinkly growth lines or riblets on the shell and none of the expected coarse ribbing. 

Lytoceras sp. Photo: Craig Chivers

If you imagine running your finger along these, you would be tracing the work of decades of growth of these cephalopods. 

While we cannot know their actual lifespans, but we can make a healthy guess. 

The nautilus, their closest living cousins live upwards of 20 years — gods be good — and less than three years if conditions are poor.

The flanges, projecting flat ribs or collars, develop at the edge of the mouth border on the animal's mantle as they grow each new chamber. 

Each delicate flange grows over the course of the ammonites life, marking various points in time and life stages as the ammonite grew. There is a large variation within Lytoceras with regards to flanges. They provide both ornamentation and strength to the shell to protect it from water pressure as they moved into deeper seas.

The concretion prior to prep

This distinctive genus with its evolute shells are found in the Cretaceous marine deposits of: 

Antarctica (5 collections), Austria (19), Colombia (1), the Czech Republic (3), Egypt (2), France (194), Greenland (16), Hungary (25), Italy (11), Madagascar (2), Mexico (1), Morocco (4), Mozambique (1), Poland (2), Portugal (1), Romania (1), the Russian Federation (2), Slovakia (3), South Africa (1), Spain (24), Tanzania (1), Trinidad and Tobago (1), Tunisia (25); and the United States of America (17: Alaska, California, North Carolina, Oregon).

We also find them in Jurassic marine outcrops in:

Austria (15), Canada (9: British Columbia), Chile (6), France (181), Germany (11), Greenland (1), Hungary (189), India (1), Indonesia (1), Iran (1), Italy (50), Japan (14), Kenya (2), Luxembourg (4), Madagascar (2), Mexico (1), Morocco (43), New Zealand (15), Portugal (1), Romania (5), the Russian Federation (1), Slovakia (1), Spain (6), Switzerland (2), Tunisia (11), Turkey (12), Turkmenistan (1), Ukraine (5), the United Kingdom (12), United States (11: Alaska, California) — in at least 977 known collections. 

References:

Sepkoski, Jack (2002). "A compendium of fossil marine animal genera (Cephalopoda entry)". Bulletins of American Paleontology. 363: 1–560. Archived from the original on 2008-05-07. Retrieved 2017-10-18.

Paleobiology Database - Lytoceras. 2017-10-19.

Systematic descriptions, Mesozoic Ammonoidea, by W.J Arkell, Bernhard Kummel, and C.W. Wright. 1957. Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, Part L. Geological Society of America and University of Kansas press.

HORNBY ISLAND FOSSILS

Diplomoceras sp.

This gorgeous cream and brown big beast of a heteromorph, Diplomoceras (Diplomoceras) sp., (Hyatt, 1900) was found within the 72 million-year-old sediments of the upper Nanaimo Group on the northern Gulf Island of Hornby in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. 

The site is known as Boulder Point to the locals and it has been a popular fossil destination for many years. It is the home of the K'ómoks First Nation, who called the island Ja-dai-aich.

Many of the fossils found at this locality are discovered in concretions rolled smooth by time and tide. The concretions you find on the beach are generally round or oval in shape and are made up of hard, compacted sedimentary rock. 

If you are lucky, when you split these nodules you are rewarded with a fossil hidden within. That is not always the case but the rewards are worth the effort. 

These past few years, many new and wonderful specimens have been unearthed — particularly by members of the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society. 

And so it was in the first warm days of early summer last year. Three members of the Vancouver Palaeontological Society excavated this 100 cm long fossil specimen over two days in June of 2020. The specimen was not in concretion but rather embedded in the hard sintered shale matrix beneath their feet. It was angled slightly downward towards the shoreline and locked within the rolling shale beds of the island. 

Diplomoceratidae (Spath, 1926) are often referred to as the paperclip ammonites. They are in the family of ammonites included in the order Ammonitida in the Class Cephalopoda and are found within marine offshore to shallow subtidal Cretaceous — 99.7 to 66.043 million-year-old — sediments worldwide. 

I was reading with interest this morning about a new find published by Muramiya and Shigeta in December 2020 of a new heteromorph ammonoid Sormaites teshioensis gen. et sp. nov. (Diplomoceratidae) described from the upper Turonian (Upper Cretaceous) in the Nakagawa area, Hokkaido, northern Japan. This lovely has a shell surface ornamented with simple, straight, sharp-tipped ribs throughout ontogeny, but infrequent flared ribs and constrictions occur on later whorls. Excluding its earliest whorls, its coiling and ornamentation are very similar to Scalarites mihoensis and Sc. densicostatus from the Turonian to Coniacian in Hokkaido and Sakhalin, suggesting that So. teshioensis was probably derived from one of these taxa in the Northwest Pacific during middle to late Turonian.

Much like the long-lived geoducks living in Puget Sound today, studies of Diplomoceras suggest that members of this family could live to be over 200 years old — a good 40-years longer than a geoduck but not nearly as long-lived as the extant bivalve Arctica islandica that reach 405 to 410 years in age. 

Along with this jaw-dropper of a heteromorph, the same group found an Actinosepia, gladius — internal hard body part found in many cephalopods of a Vampyropod. Vampyropods are members of the proposed group Vampyropoda — equivalent to the superorder Octopodiformes — which includes vampire squid and octopus.

The upper Nanaimo Group is a mix of marine sandstone, conglomerate and shale. These are partially exposed in the Campanian to the lower Maastrichtian outcrops at Collishaw Point on the northwest side of Hornby Island.

Along with fossil crabs, shark teeth, bivalves and occasional rare and exquisite saurodontid fish, an ambush predator with very sharp serrated teeth and elongate, torpedo-like body — we also find three heteromorph ammonite families are represented within the massive, dark-grey mudstones interlaminated and interbedded with siltstone and fine-grained sandstone of the upper Campanian (Upper Cretaceous) strata of the Northumberland Formation exposed here: Baculitidae, Diplomoceratidae and Nostoceratidae. 

A variety of species are distinguished within these families, of which only three taxa – Baculites occidentalis (Meek, 1862), Diplomoceras (Diplomoceras) cylindraceum (Defrance, 1816) and Nostoceras (Nostoceras) hornbyense (Whiteaves, 1895), have been studied and reported previously. 

Over the last decade, large new collections by many members of the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society and palaeontologists working at the Geologic Survey of Canada, along with a renewed look at previous collections have provided new taxonomic and morphometric data for the Hornby Island ammonite fauna. This renewed lens has helped shape our understanding and revamp descriptions of heteromorph taxa. Eleven taxa are recognized, including the new species Exiteloceras (Exiteloceras) densicostatum sp. nov., Nostoceras (Didymoceras?) adrotans sp. nov. and Solenoceras exornatus sp. nov. 

A great variety of shape and form exist within each group. Morphometric analyses by Sandy McLachlan and Jim Haggart of over 700 specimens unveiled the considerable phenotypic plasticity of these ammonites. They exhibit an extraordinarily broad spectrum of variability in their ornamentation and shell dimensions. 

The presence of a vibrant amateur palaeontological community on Vancouver Island made the extent of their work possible. Graham Beard, Doug Carrick, Betty Franklin, Raymond Graham, Joe Haegert, Bob Hunt, Stevi Kittleson, Kurt Morrison and Jean Sibbald are thanked for their correspondence and generosity in contributing many of the exquisite specimens featured in that study. 

These generous individuals, along with many other members of the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society (VIPS), Vancouver Paleontological Society (VanPS), and British Columbia Paleontological Alliance (BCPA), have contributed a great deal to our knowledge of the West Coast of Canada and her geologic and palaeontological correlations to the rest of the world; notably, Dan Bowen, Rick Ross, John Fam and Pat and Mike Trask, Naomi & Terry Thomas. Their diligence in the collection, preparation and documentation of macrofossils is a reflection of the passion they have for palaeontology and their will to help shape the narrative of Earth history.

Through their efforts, a large population sample of Nostoceras (Nostoceras) hornbyense was made available and provided an excellent case study of a member of the Nostoceratidae. It was through the well-documented collection and examination of a remarkable number of nearly complete, well-preserved specimens that a re-evaluation of diagnostic traits within the genus Nostoceras was made possible. 

The north-east Pacific Nostoceras (Nostoceras) hornbyense Zone and the global Nostoceras (Nostoceras) hyatti Assemblage Zone are regarded as correlative, reinforcing a late Campanian age for the Northumberland Formation. This builds on the earlier work of individuals like Alan McGugan and others. McGugan looked at the Upper Cretaceous (Campanian and Maastrichtian) Foraminifera from the Upper Lambert and Northumberland Formations, Gulf Islands, British Columbia, Canada.

The Maastrichtian Bolivina incrassata fauna (upper part of Upper Lambert Formation) of Hornby Island (northern Comox Basin) is now recognized in the southern Nanaimo Basin on Gabriola and Galiano Islands. The Maastrichtian planktonic index species Globotruncana contusa occurs in the Upper Northumberland Formation of Mayne Island and Globotruncana calcarata (uppermost Campanian) occurs| in the Upper Northumberland Formation of Mayne Island and also in the Upper Lambert Formation at Manning Point on the north shore of Hornby Island (Comox Basin).

Very abundant benthonic and planktonic foraminiferal assemblages from the Upper Campanian Lower Northumberland Formation of Mayne Island enable paleoecological interpretations to be made using the Fisher diversity index, triangular plots of Texturlariina/Rotaliina/Miliolina, calcareous/agglutinated ratios, planktonic/benthonic ratios, generic models, and associated microfossils and megafossils. 

Combined with local geology and stratigraphy a relatively shallow neritic depositional environment is proposed for the Northumberland Formation in agreement with Scott but not Sliter who proposed an Outer shelf/slope environment with depths of 300 m or more.

References & further reading: Sandy M. S. McLachlan & James W. Haggart (2018) Reassessment of the late Campanian (Late Cretaceous) heteromorph ammonite fauna from Hornby Island, British Columbia, with implications for the taxonomy of the Diplomoceratidae and Nostoceratidae, Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, 16:15, 1247-1299, DOI: 10.1080/14772019.2017.1381651

Crickmay, C. H., and Pocock, S. A. J. 1963. Cretaceous of Vancouver, British Columbia. American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, 47, pp. 1928-1942.

England, T.D.J. and R. N. Hiscott (1991): Upper Nanaimo Group and younger strata, outer Gulf Islands, southwestern British Columbia: in Current Research, Part E; Geological Survey of Canada, Paper 91-1E, p. 117-125.

McGugan, Alan. (2011). Upper Cretaceous (Campanian and Maestrichtian) Foraminifera from the Upper Lambert and Northumberland Formations, Gulf Islands, British Columbia, Canada. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. 16. 2263-2274. 10.1139/e79-211. 

Scott, James. (2021). Upper Cretaceous foraminifera of the Haslam, Qualicum, and Trent River formations, Vancouver Island, British Columbia /. 

Sliter, W. & Baker, RA. (1972). Cretaceous bathymetric distribution of benthic foraminifers. Journal of Foraminiferal Research - J FORAMIN RES. 2. 167-183. 10.2113/gsjfr.2.4.167. 

Spath L. F. 1926. A Monograph of the Ammonoidea of the Gault; Part VI. Palaeontographical Society London

Sullivan, Rory (4 November 2020). "Large squid-like creature that looked like a giant paperclip lived for 200 years — 68 million years ago". The Independent. Archived from the original on 4 November 2020.

Urquhart, N. & Williams, C.. (1966). Patterns in Balance of Nature. Biometrics. 22. 206. 10.2307/2528236. 

Yusuke Muramiya and Yasunari Shigeta "Sormaites, a New Heteromorph Ammonoid Genus from the Turonian (Upper Cretaceous) of Hokkaido, Japan," Paleontological Research 25(1), 11-18, (30 December 2020). https://doi.org/10.2517/2020PR016.

Photos: Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society, Courtenay, British Columbia, Naomi and Terry Thomas.